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Outliers

By Malcolm Gladwell

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| Others | 9780316056281

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Book Description

Mass Market paperback

Critics

OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (OCT 20, 2009) Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is a thought-provoking and entertaining analysis in which the author explores why certain people fall outside the norms of human behavior and achievement. For example, how did Bill ... (read full critics)

mostlyfiction published on Thu, 30 Sep 2010

So much for the self-made man

What do we get from Malcolm Gladwell, in return for all the adulation, multi-million-dollar advances and $80,000 speaker's fees? Listening to his detractors, you would think the answer is not very much, but that, of course, could be at least partly d ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

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30 Reviews

7 people find this helpful

I love this book. After devouring the book, I found it a very satisfying experience. I share many of the views of Malcolm Gladwell in this book towards work, attitude and life, and I am really glad that in this time when distorted beliefs and twisted values are touted, we have people like Gladwell ... (continue)

I love this book. After devouring the book, I found it a very satisfying experience. I share many of the views of Malcolm Gladwell in this book towards work, attitude and life, and I am really glad that in this time when distorted beliefs and twisted values are touted, we have people like Gladwell to challenge us to think about the fundamental truth of success.
Like his previous two books, "The Tipping Point" and "Blink", "Outliers" started off with the premise that when we try to find out why the successful people, i.e. the outliers (beyond the normal distribution), are so successful, we have been asking the wrong question: what are these people? Instead, we should be asking: where do these people come from?
In other words, successful people owe their success not to their innate talent (though it is important), but to opportunity and hard work. Well, this is not an original or insightful idea as everybody knows about it. But that is where Gladwell, veteran journalist of The New Yorker, distinguishes himself from other writers. He delves into what these opportunities are and how they make these people what they have become. In presenting his arguments, he gave numerous fascinating and interesting accounts of real-life cases which are meticulously researched and read like detective stories (Gladwell used to be an investigative reporter).
Through these cases and statistics ranging from the drafting of Canadian hockey players, Bill Gates, domination of Jewish law firms in New York to the turnaround of the Korean Air, Gladwell argued that while the inherent capabilities (e.g. high IQ) of a person is important, a person cannot be successful without the help of others: when and where you were born, what your parents did for a living, and the circumstances of your upbringing. This is part one of the book, and it is very convincing. I particularly like the section on the "10,000-hour rule" and the impact of parents on shaping the success of their children. True mastery of anything complex can only be achieved by 10,000 hours of hard practice (but not everyone has the luxury of practising for 10,000 hours - and that's where opportunity comes into play). The parents of successful people are engaged in meaningful work, i.e. work with autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward. "Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning."
Part two of the book explains how a country's culture (what Gladwell means is plainly "race") also contributes to the success of people in certain fields, e.g. the Asians' mastery of mathematics, and how certain cultural legacy (e.g. the "high-power distance index" of the Koreans) deters people from doing well in other fields, e.g. the higher incidence of plane crashes of the Korean Airline before 1999.
I think part two of the book is a bit off the track as it deviates from the main theme on explaining the success story of individuals (as opposed to a certain country or race). However, what Gladwell is trying to say is that we can create the opportunities and circumstances that help those talented people whom he described in part one achieve what they strive to be. And that is really what matters.
The reason why I bought this book is because I read an excerpt in The New Yorker and was attracted to the case about a guy with an IQ of 195 who ended up rearing pigs on a farm. After reading "Outliers", I understand why and the story of this guy, Christopher Langan, is really sad. Gladwell knows how to present simple and obvious theories through packaging that can hook readers to his book from the beginning to the end. Despite all his detailed analysis, Gladwell's explanations of the factors of success can in fact be summed up in one word: luck. Christopher Langan is just unlucky.
Gladwell is very good at choosing his cases and identifying a pattern or phenomenon to support his point. I am sure there are an equally large number of examples which are contrary to his assertions (i.e. success is purely attributable to a person's inherent abilities and/or efforts on his own), but Gladwell just didn't mention them. Anyway, just reading Gladwell's well-researched analysis in simple and clear English is already an enjoyable and satisfying experience.
This is a book not to be missed.

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Tracy W said on Jan 28, 2009 | 1 feedback

2 people find this helpful

Interesting studies and statistics to convey the idea that outliers are not purely coming from hard work and individual merits, but also from opportunities and cultural legacies.
The most interesting chapter is the one talking about why Korean Air planes crash more often that the others...

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weiweiwei said on Aug 13, 2011 | 1 feedback

2 people find this helpful

Interesting stories, flawed analyses

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the best story tellers in our age. His intense curiosity has led us down many different interesting anecdotes, leading towards surprisingly profound conclusions. His previous works - the international bestsellers Tipping Point and Blink - were delightful reads. So is Outli ... (continue)

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the best story tellers in our age. His intense curiosity has led us down many different interesting anecdotes, leading towards surprisingly profound conclusions. His previous works - the international bestsellers Tipping Point and Blink - were delightful reads. So is Outliers.
Alas, analytical skills is sadly missing from Gladwell's portfolio. His greatest weakness lies in his greatest strength - the ability to draw exciting conclusions from seemingly disparate facts. He quotes the works of a great variety of academics, as the best science writers do, but also takes huge leaps of logic on his own.
The book's thesis is simple - success requires the presence of opportunity and legacy. Opportunity entails being born at the right time, sufficient number of hours of practice, and a favorable environment. Legacy deals with the lasting effect of a people's cultural heritage from ancient times to modern days. The first part contains few fresh revelations. Some of the examples, though, make me cringe. The second part is even more problematic to me. For example, he claims that the diligence required in growing rice led to Chinese people's famously hard core work ethics. This is an enormously simplified, and erroneous, causation. I find it more plausible if the dots are connected this way: high caloric value of rice sustained high population density -> greater competition among the citizens -> a culture that values hard work and entrepreneurship in an urban setting. Skipping these steps would exclude other societies that share similar factors (stable food source, sizable population, relatively urbanized) and have strong work ethics (e.g. Jews, Protestants, etc). Also, I have never heard of the Chinese proverbs he used to prove Chinese people's "unique" fixation with sowing and reaping. That whole chapter simply felt thinly reasoned to me, particularly because I am Asian.
Gladwell concluded the book by describing the opportunities and legacies that ran in his family. It was a moving tale, once again showcasing his splendid storytelling. Despite the many instances of oversimplification or omission, Outliers is still a beautifully written and intellectually stimulating book (although probably not the way intended by the author).

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s tsui said on Jun 2, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

A very powerful book to find excuses! ^.^
Somehow make sense, but Malcom failed to explain the story of the success people outside his examples, nor those unsucess people who were born the same period and had worked very hard too.

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xYang said on Jan 11, 2012 | Add your feedback

好多人會問怎樣才能成功呢？ "Outliner: the story of sucess" 可能會給予一個答案。本書的結論好簡單，中國人有話「一命二運三風水。」其次是努力及耐心做一樣野要做得出色, 一萬個小時的最低消費 (This is so called 10000 hours principle.)。講就天下冇敵。本書其實係給做人父母看多的, 如果自己冇錢又冇時間去take care 小朋友就唔好大期望啦。買條六合彩好過。

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Alex Yu said on Dec 23, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Quite good, interesting

Check out my coment in my spanish blog: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2011/11/outliers-st…
This is a book about exceptional people… and how they are not as extraordinary as the good luck they have had. These people that dominate at sports, business, science, etc; in ... (continue)

Check out my coment in my spanish blog: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2011/11/outliers-st…
This is a book about exceptional people… and how they are not as extraordinary as the good luck they have had. These people that dominate at sports, business, science, etc; in reality are the conjunction of very favorable conditions. For example, there is this guy Robert Oppenheimer, who is very good at physics. When he was young, he seriously tried to poison one of his teachers, and everything he got for that was a slap in the hand and a “don’t do it again” note; he eventually turned out to be a respectable academic. On the other hand, there is this other guy, whose name I don’t even remember and he was very good at physics too. He needed to change his classes’ schedules because his car broke, and he was denied the change and expelled from college on absentee grounds. Why is that? Just good luck. The author also says that if you are Chinese, you are very much inclined to be good at math than English speakers, because numbers in Chinese are really easy to say and remember. He speaks about his own ordeal with severe body burns and how he was lucky to find a beautiful wife even with his scars. He says that is just good luck too. Well, it is a combination of good luck and hard work, but in order to succeed, the two conditions must be present.

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ariadna73 said on Nov 17, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback