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What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures
What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period.
Here you'll find the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling creations of pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and why it was that employers in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Now, in What the Dog Saw, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from The New Yorker over the same period.
Here you'll find the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling creations of pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and why it was that employers in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.
444 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Malcolm Gladwell
115 books36k followersMalcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,387 reviews
June 11, 2023
Malcolm Gladwell hand-picked 19 of his own articles from the New Yorker with the running theme of seeing social, political and other issues from outlier, fact-based and/or data-backed perspectives. A highly thought provoking and entertaining read.
Areas covered are the likes of:
- The Ketchup Conundrum – Mustard Now Comes in Dozens of Varieties. Why Has Ketchup Stayed the Same?
- The Art of Failure – Why Some People Choke and Others Panic
- Million-Dollar Murray – Why Problems like Homelessness May Be Easier to Solve Than to Manage
- The Talent Myth – Are Smart People Overrated?
Two of the articles also take deep dives into Enron.
As ever Gladwell had been researching like crazy to back up some of these, sometimes incredible takes on business and/or science related issues. Quite a bit daring for a fourth published book, that could have easily consigned as a filler. Still an 8 out of 12, Four Star highly informative read.
2023 and 2013 read
Areas covered are the likes of:
- The Ketchup Conundrum – Mustard Now Comes in Dozens of Varieties. Why Has Ketchup Stayed the Same?
- The Art of Failure – Why Some People Choke and Others Panic
- Million-Dollar Murray – Why Problems like Homelessness May Be Easier to Solve Than to Manage
- The Talent Myth – Are Smart People Overrated?
Two of the articles also take deep dives into Enron.
As ever Gladwell had been researching like crazy to back up some of these, sometimes incredible takes on business and/or science related issues. Quite a bit daring for a fourth published book, that could have easily consigned as a filler. Still an 8 out of 12, Four Star highly informative read.
2023 and 2013 read
November 7, 2009
I’m very fond of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. It is hard for me to not gush about someone who is living a life I would love to live. I guess I should feel jealous of him, but instead I just feel grateful to know that someone can live that life.
And I really love his writing. He is a writer who never leaves his readers behind, who is always beautifully clear and who structures what he has to say in ways that not only compel you to go on reading, but also so he takes you by the hand and makes sure you are always alongside him.
It is impossible not to feel perfectly safe with Malcolm Gladwell – and given that some of these articles are about killer dogs and mass murderers, feeling safe with the writer seems almost obligatory.
I’m not going to talk about the subject matter of any of these articles – I’m assuming that most of you are going to eventually read them anyway, so it feels a bit pointless spoiling things for you. Instead, I would like to look at how he structures his articles and why I find what he does so utterly compelling.
If there is a philosopher that I really admire it is Aristotle. I mean, the guy was a genius and dominated Western thought for two thousands years. It is fair to say that for a very, very long time Western thought, as far as it was ‘thought’, was Aristotelian. But I admire Aristotle because he is so different from me, not in the least because I would like to be like him. If there is one thing I truly know about myself it is that I am nothing like Aristotle. You see, Aristotle was the great categoriser. He had a brain that was like a filing cabinet and he could come to something completely new, something no one had ever thought systematically about before and he the remarkable ability to see how to file things away in this totally new subject. He virtually created many of the disciplines we study now, such as physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, poetics, and the list just goes on and on.
I need to make that a bit more clear. It wasn’t just that he could come to a subject like poetics and say (this is not a literal quote, though he does say something similar), ‘the major division is between tragedy and comedy – in tragedy a character gets what he deserves, while in comedy a character gets what he thinks he wants’. It was more that he was able to see that the division between tragedy and comedy was a key division. If you were going to talk about drama, Aristotle just knew that you had to virtually start by talking about that division and how a play that was a comedy was different from a play that was a tragedy. He didn't just invent the filing cabinet, he also put the first labels on the files and then put some gobsmacking content in those files as well.
Even while dancing around in my most sunny of dispositions I don't for a moment think that I am anything like Aristotle. I really don’t do categories in the way he does. My mind doesn’t quite work that way – just as I don’t paint like Picasso – but I’ll tell you what, I love it when I see it.
And what has this got to do with Gladwell and his latest book? Well, the whole way through this book I kept thinking that Gladwell has learnt so much from Aristotle. He has learnt how to play with categories in ways that are pure delight. What he does looks so simple and so obvious - it is really no wonder that people try (and generally fail) to copy it. It takes lots and lots of hard work to make writing look quite this effortless.
I cavalierly started off by saying I wouldn’t tell you anything about the articles in this book and now find I have to – such are the meanderings these reviews take me on. In the last chapter of this book there is a long discussion of what is a Pit Bull Terrier and whether it is the dog or the owner that should be put down after an attack (no prize for guessing the answer to that one). Except, Gladwell’s point is that banning a bred of dog is incredibly difficult, as Pit Bull is a category that is imposed on a wide and various group of individual dogs and as a category it struggles to stretch across all of the dogs it seeks to cover. This is because a category is generally selected to identify a problem – but the dogs themselves aren’t actually the problem – it is the (as they say in France) arseholes that own them. That he then used this distinction to talk about the identification of terrorists and why stopping only people who look like Middle Eastern men is a stupid idea almost had me cheering.
In another article he deconstructs the category of FBI Criminal Profiler and confounds it with the category of psychic cold-reader – and not in a complimentary way. In yet another chapter he compares our categories of quarterback (someone who involves himself in a kind of game mostly played, from what I can gather, in the US) and teacher. What Gladwell often does is force us to look again at the categories we use to divide up the world and then to see if they really still make any sense. In a way, he is doing the opposite of what Aristotle did. But either way, I think he does it just as beautifully.
As a case in point, it may be that my favourite part of this book is where he says at the end of one of his articles that if we are expected to spend so much time outside of the box perhaps we should be getting a new box. You know, watching someone do that to a cliché (particularly one I hate) is just about the most satisfying thing I can think of.
But he doesn’t just tear down old and tired metaphors – he also helps to show interesting distinctions between categories we generally think of as being pretty much about the same things. Like the fascinating distinction he draws between a puzzle and a mystery. Do you see what he does? He uses metaphors in the way that they are meant to be used. A metaphor can be used in two ways: either to stop us thinking or to get us to see something almost as if for the first time. Metaphors that stop us thinking are called clichés – let’s list some: to my way of seeing, thinking outside the box, at the end of the day, let’s unpack that, we should populate this data set … I’d better stop or I’ll be making myself sick. Metaphors can do better than that, though. They can also be used to instruct us in things we don’t know anything about and they do that by comparing the new thing to those things we think we already know very well.
In this book when Gladwell discusses how he would like to distinguish between a puzzle and a mystery he uses the example of the sorts of questions that might have been asked during cold war spying on Russia (what is the size of the Soviet economy? how many nuclear weapons does China have?) and then that most amusing of games, where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? to show that these are questions that could be answered if only we had enough new data, if we had enough new information. These are puzzles. They are problems that could be solved if we just had a couple of more pieces.
A mystery, though, is something quite different. To solve a mystery you don’t need more information – one of the ‘rules’ of mysteries is that you already have all of the information you need. The problem isn’t that you have too little information, it is that you have far too much and that you have no way of grading the information you’ve got into what is important and what is just trivial noise.
And right there you see a new distinction open up between categories that allows you to think anew about a range of issues that might not have made a lot of sense before. Gladwell discusses Watergate as a puzzle and Iraq as a mystery. He then has some very interesting things to say about public accounting of private corporations and whether companies providing us with thousands and thousands of pages of information on how they are going is designed to inform or confuse us. And then asks if maybe we need to not look at company accounts as ways of solving puzzles, but rather if we might not be better off approaching interpreting the health of a company more as a mystery. It is possible that this distinction sounds more profound than it really is – I’m quite prepared to admit that – but all the same, I’m not terribly concerned about that. What it does do is to get me to think about that distinction and to wonder about it. He does this over and over again in all of his books. Needless to say, I really like it.
I love Gladwell’s stuff. He brings so much joy and so much interest to his articles that it is always a delight to read him.
And I really love his writing. He is a writer who never leaves his readers behind, who is always beautifully clear and who structures what he has to say in ways that not only compel you to go on reading, but also so he takes you by the hand and makes sure you are always alongside him.
It is impossible not to feel perfectly safe with Malcolm Gladwell – and given that some of these articles are about killer dogs and mass murderers, feeling safe with the writer seems almost obligatory.
I’m not going to talk about the subject matter of any of these articles – I’m assuming that most of you are going to eventually read them anyway, so it feels a bit pointless spoiling things for you. Instead, I would like to look at how he structures his articles and why I find what he does so utterly compelling.
If there is a philosopher that I really admire it is Aristotle. I mean, the guy was a genius and dominated Western thought for two thousands years. It is fair to say that for a very, very long time Western thought, as far as it was ‘thought’, was Aristotelian. But I admire Aristotle because he is so different from me, not in the least because I would like to be like him. If there is one thing I truly know about myself it is that I am nothing like Aristotle. You see, Aristotle was the great categoriser. He had a brain that was like a filing cabinet and he could come to something completely new, something no one had ever thought systematically about before and he the remarkable ability to see how to file things away in this totally new subject. He virtually created many of the disciplines we study now, such as physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, poetics, and the list just goes on and on.
I need to make that a bit more clear. It wasn’t just that he could come to a subject like poetics and say (this is not a literal quote, though he does say something similar), ‘the major division is between tragedy and comedy – in tragedy a character gets what he deserves, while in comedy a character gets what he thinks he wants’. It was more that he was able to see that the division between tragedy and comedy was a key division. If you were going to talk about drama, Aristotle just knew that you had to virtually start by talking about that division and how a play that was a comedy was different from a play that was a tragedy. He didn't just invent the filing cabinet, he also put the first labels on the files and then put some gobsmacking content in those files as well.
Even while dancing around in my most sunny of dispositions I don't for a moment think that I am anything like Aristotle. I really don’t do categories in the way he does. My mind doesn’t quite work that way – just as I don’t paint like Picasso – but I’ll tell you what, I love it when I see it.
And what has this got to do with Gladwell and his latest book? Well, the whole way through this book I kept thinking that Gladwell has learnt so much from Aristotle. He has learnt how to play with categories in ways that are pure delight. What he does looks so simple and so obvious - it is really no wonder that people try (and generally fail) to copy it. It takes lots and lots of hard work to make writing look quite this effortless.
I cavalierly started off by saying I wouldn’t tell you anything about the articles in this book and now find I have to – such are the meanderings these reviews take me on. In the last chapter of this book there is a long discussion of what is a Pit Bull Terrier and whether it is the dog or the owner that should be put down after an attack (no prize for guessing the answer to that one). Except, Gladwell’s point is that banning a bred of dog is incredibly difficult, as Pit Bull is a category that is imposed on a wide and various group of individual dogs and as a category it struggles to stretch across all of the dogs it seeks to cover. This is because a category is generally selected to identify a problem – but the dogs themselves aren’t actually the problem – it is the (as they say in France) arseholes that own them. That he then used this distinction to talk about the identification of terrorists and why stopping only people who look like Middle Eastern men is a stupid idea almost had me cheering.
In another article he deconstructs the category of FBI Criminal Profiler and confounds it with the category of psychic cold-reader – and not in a complimentary way. In yet another chapter he compares our categories of quarterback (someone who involves himself in a kind of game mostly played, from what I can gather, in the US) and teacher. What Gladwell often does is force us to look again at the categories we use to divide up the world and then to see if they really still make any sense. In a way, he is doing the opposite of what Aristotle did. But either way, I think he does it just as beautifully.
As a case in point, it may be that my favourite part of this book is where he says at the end of one of his articles that if we are expected to spend so much time outside of the box perhaps we should be getting a new box. You know, watching someone do that to a cliché (particularly one I hate) is just about the most satisfying thing I can think of.
But he doesn’t just tear down old and tired metaphors – he also helps to show interesting distinctions between categories we generally think of as being pretty much about the same things. Like the fascinating distinction he draws between a puzzle and a mystery. Do you see what he does? He uses metaphors in the way that they are meant to be used. A metaphor can be used in two ways: either to stop us thinking or to get us to see something almost as if for the first time. Metaphors that stop us thinking are called clichés – let’s list some: to my way of seeing, thinking outside the box, at the end of the day, let’s unpack that, we should populate this data set … I’d better stop or I’ll be making myself sick. Metaphors can do better than that, though. They can also be used to instruct us in things we don’t know anything about and they do that by comparing the new thing to those things we think we already know very well.
In this book when Gladwell discusses how he would like to distinguish between a puzzle and a mystery he uses the example of the sorts of questions that might have been asked during cold war spying on Russia (what is the size of the Soviet economy? how many nuclear weapons does China have?) and then that most amusing of games, where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? to show that these are questions that could be answered if only we had enough new data, if we had enough new information. These are puzzles. They are problems that could be solved if we just had a couple of more pieces.
A mystery, though, is something quite different. To solve a mystery you don’t need more information – one of the ‘rules’ of mysteries is that you already have all of the information you need. The problem isn’t that you have too little information, it is that you have far too much and that you have no way of grading the information you’ve got into what is important and what is just trivial noise.
And right there you see a new distinction open up between categories that allows you to think anew about a range of issues that might not have made a lot of sense before. Gladwell discusses Watergate as a puzzle and Iraq as a mystery. He then has some very interesting things to say about public accounting of private corporations and whether companies providing us with thousands and thousands of pages of information on how they are going is designed to inform or confuse us. And then asks if maybe we need to not look at company accounts as ways of solving puzzles, but rather if we might not be better off approaching interpreting the health of a company more as a mystery. It is possible that this distinction sounds more profound than it really is – I’m quite prepared to admit that – but all the same, I’m not terribly concerned about that. What it does do is to get me to think about that distinction and to wonder about it. He does this over and over again in all of his books. Needless to say, I really like it.
I love Gladwell’s stuff. He brings so much joy and so much interest to his articles that it is always a delight to read him.
January 2, 2016
This is an interesting collection of Malcolm Gladwell's writings that were originally published in The New Yorker. In the preface, Gladwell says this collection includes his favorite articles. I've read most of his books, and What the Dog Saw is a similarly fun mix of popular sociology, psychology, economics, social history and marketing. My favorite articles in the bunch were the ones on Ron Popeil, hair color, Cesar Millan, homelessness, plagiarism, criminal profiling and pit bulls.
Gladwell is an engaging writer, and I think this collection works so well because the articles are just the right length. Sometimes his books can drag out a subject too long, but like Goldilocks, this book felt "just right. If you like audiobooks, Gladwell is a good narrator, and these articles are fun to listen to. Highly recommended for Gladwell fans.
Opening Passage
Good Biographical Quote
"Growing up, I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a lawyer, and then in my last year of college, I decided I wanted to be in advertising. I applied to eighteen advertising agencies in the city of Toronto and received eighteen rejection letters, which I taped in a row on my wall. (I still have them somewhere.) I thought about graduate school, but my grades weren't quote good enough. I applied for a fellowship to go somewhere exotic for a year and was rejected. Writing was the thing I ended up doing by default, for the simple reason that it took me forever to realize that writing could be a job. Jobs were things that were serious and daunting. Writing was fun."
Gladwell is an engaging writer, and I think this collection works so well because the articles are just the right length. Sometimes his books can drag out a subject too long, but like Goldilocks, this book felt "just right. If you like audiobooks, Gladwell is a good narrator, and these articles are fun to listen to. Highly recommended for Gladwell fans.
Opening Passage
When I was a small child, I used to sneak into my father's study and leaf through the papers on his desk. He is a mathematician. He wrote on graph paper, in pencil — long rows of neatly written numbers and figures. I would sit on the edge of his chair and look at each page with puzzlement and wonder. It seemed miraculous, first of all, that he got paid for what seemed, at the time, like gibberish. But more important, I couldn't get over the fact that someone whom I loved so dearly did something every day, inside his own head, that I could not begin to understand.
This was actually a version of what I would later learn psychologists call the other minds problem. One-year-olds think that if they like Goldfish Crackers, then Mommy and Daddy must like Goldfish Crackers, too: they have not grasped the idea that was is inside their head is different from what is inside everyone else's head. Sooner or later, though, children come to understand that Mommy and Daddy don't necessarily like Goldfish, too, and that moment is one of the great cognitive milestones of human development. Why is a two-year-old so terrible? Because she is systematically testing the fascinating, and, to her, utterly novel notion that something that gives her pleasure might not actually give someone else pleasure — and the truth is that as adults we never lose that fascination.
Good Biographical Quote
"Growing up, I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a lawyer, and then in my last year of college, I decided I wanted to be in advertising. I applied to eighteen advertising agencies in the city of Toronto and received eighteen rejection letters, which I taped in a row on my wall. (I still have them somewhere.) I thought about graduate school, but my grades weren't quote good enough. I applied for a fellowship to go somewhere exotic for a year and was rejected. Writing was the thing I ended up doing by default, for the simple reason that it took me forever to realize that writing could be a job. Jobs were things that were serious and daunting. Writing was fun."
August 17, 2019
What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell, in audio form, is read by the author, which always contributes to the enjoyment of his essays. This is a compilation of essays written for The New Yorker over a period of ten years. And as usual, a Gladwell book is always food for thought. He covers a broad spectrum of ideas: people we remember, others we've never heard about, bits of this and that, all of it so informative. His interest in almost everything is passed on to his readers. In his usual fashion, his calm approach hooks you from the first sentence. Read a few essays or enjoy the entire book, you will not regret picking up What the Dog Saw.
November 2, 2012
In What the Dog Saw, Gladwell offers a treasure chest of gems, each shining brightly on their own. In each essay, Gladwell usually starts with one puzzling situation and then adds information and other narratives to complicate the topic. Then the first situation resurfaces midway and at the conclusion, helping to bring the topic to closure. Most of the time, his underlying thesis runs along the lines of "Wow, things are a lot more complicated or a lot more simple than they seem." He's obsessed with patterns -- finding them when they are invisible; complicating them if they are widely accepted.
I've been reading all of Gladwell's books, mainly because he comes up in conversation so often. I wanted to weigh in. This book is his fourth published, but it contains essays published before he started doing book-length works. As I said in a review of one of his books, I feel as though his book chapters could be shuffled because he struggles to impose an overarching structure. This collection of essays showcases him in his element; gone is the awkwardness that I find in his book-length works.
I read all his works in a large part to answer this question: "Why is Gladwell so popular?" Gladwell's writing is tied to a specific moment in time. He's responding to the challenges of the information age--a moment in time where people walk around with hand-held computers and constantly face the task of making judgements about what information is important and what is trivial. He's talking to readers who are drowning in data coming in tidal waves off various screens. Gladwell is throwing them a line. "Here, hold on to this truism, this observation, this law of human behavior. Stick with me, and you'll keep your head above water."
At first glance Gladwell seems to only offer comfort by pointing out patterns amid seeming chaos. Not so. He most often cautions against imposing patterns where none exist. Gladwell uses examples here and in his book-length works of inaccurate patterns imposed in fields as diverse as these: a) military intelligence b) stock market analysis c) criminal profiling d) cancer detection, e) nuclear power plants, f) animal control, and g) the staffing decisions for filling corporate positions, political seats, orchestra musician positions and football teams. I suspect that he sells a lot of books to people who are hoping to impose order on things, people and ideas. He's very popular with the business set. But if you pay closer attention, Gladwell makes quiet concessions that despite all this will to order, we are defeated by chaos, whimsy, serendipity, folly, and gremlins. (OK, he didn't list gremlins directly.) I don't think he's telling us to abandon the drive to predict and control, but he's certainly pointing out the hubris in believing that we can do so. Consequently, I will now file something with a little fear and trembling. But before I do, here are some specifics, motivated by my will to order the details of his book.
"The Pitchman" describes the charismatic Ron Popeil, inventor and demonstrator of the Veg-o-Matic. Gladwell describes this amazing pitchman and others of his ilk, contrasting them with actors and ending with the syngergy created when Popeil's methods met live television.
"The Ketchup Coundrum" describes how various foods are developed, tested and marketed, but the central example explains why ketchup sells for staying focused whereas mustard and spaghetti sauce have diversified.
"Blowing Up" contrasts two methods of investing on Wall Street--finding patterns and banking on chaos.
"True Colors" draws the curtain back from the marketing strategies for hair coloring, revealing something about the mind of American women and how the women's movement made ripples through this market.
"John's Rock Error" explains the rationale of the Pill's inventor as he worked to resolve the science of birth control with his faith as a practicing Catholic.
"What the Dog Saw" describes how dogs are highly sensitive to the body language of humans, which explains why Ceasar Milan focuses on training owners as a way to better train dogs.
"Open Secrets" retraces the signs of Enron's risky practices and explains why people didn't see what became so apparent after its fall.
"Million Dollar Murray" provides shocking data on how the current policies on homelessness actually costs society a great deal of money.
"The Picture Problem" presents the complexities of properly reading mammographies, making screening for this type of cancer particularly challenging.
"Something Borrowed" discusses the gray areas in intellectual property and Gladwell's own experience of having his words sampled (without credit) into another person's work.
"Connecting the Dots" bears some similarity to the pattern problems discussed in the Enron article and the mammography article in its discussion of how challenging it is to predict acts of war and terrorism--not because of lack of information but because of an overabundance of it.
"Blowup" again talks about the issue of information overload, this time in the safety procedures put in place in the space program. Even though the O-rings were viewed as a trouble spot for any space flight, the risk-benefit analysis employed allowed the Challenger to launch, which resulted in tragedy.
"Late Bloomers" contrasts two forms of genius: the young, experimental types vs. the older, practice-makes-perfect type. The examples of Picasso vs. Cezzanne crystalize his theory, but this essay contains more examples for good measure.
"Most Likely to Succeed" describes the challenge talent scouts have in predicting an athlete's performance in the NFL based on his performance in college football. It turns out that the two games are vastly different, requiring a different set of skills for success.
"Dangerous Minds" compares the work of criminal profilers to the work of psychologists, detectives, psychics and other who seek to find a connection between crime and criminal.
"The Talent Myth" suggests that the value placed on talent has set up some companies and sports teams to overlook other important aspects of their "players." Gladwell examines the corporate culture of a handful of companies, such as Enron, Proctor & Gamble, and Southwest--each time looking at how the leaders evaluate performance, personality and group dynamics.
"The New-Boy Network" hones in on the job interview as an information-gathering task. He surveys psychologists, human resource directors, job applicants and bosses in an effort to describe the dynamics of the interview.
"Troublemakers" examines the stereotypes about dangerous dog breeds and the statistics for fatal bites. As he did in the title essay about Milan's work with dogs, Gladwell moves his gaze from examining the dog to examining the environment fostered by the dog's owner to ask whether or not banning particular breeds really serves as the best response to the problem of dangerous breeds.
I've been reading all of Gladwell's books, mainly because he comes up in conversation so often. I wanted to weigh in. This book is his fourth published, but it contains essays published before he started doing book-length works. As I said in a review of one of his books, I feel as though his book chapters could be shuffled because he struggles to impose an overarching structure. This collection of essays showcases him in his element; gone is the awkwardness that I find in his book-length works.
I read all his works in a large part to answer this question: "Why is Gladwell so popular?" Gladwell's writing is tied to a specific moment in time. He's responding to the challenges of the information age--a moment in time where people walk around with hand-held computers and constantly face the task of making judgements about what information is important and what is trivial. He's talking to readers who are drowning in data coming in tidal waves off various screens. Gladwell is throwing them a line. "Here, hold on to this truism, this observation, this law of human behavior. Stick with me, and you'll keep your head above water."
At first glance Gladwell seems to only offer comfort by pointing out patterns amid seeming chaos. Not so. He most often cautions against imposing patterns where none exist. Gladwell uses examples here and in his book-length works of inaccurate patterns imposed in fields as diverse as these: a) military intelligence b) stock market analysis c) criminal profiling d) cancer detection, e) nuclear power plants, f) animal control, and g) the staffing decisions for filling corporate positions, political seats, orchestra musician positions and football teams. I suspect that he sells a lot of books to people who are hoping to impose order on things, people and ideas. He's very popular with the business set. But if you pay closer attention, Gladwell makes quiet concessions that despite all this will to order, we are defeated by chaos, whimsy, serendipity, folly, and gremlins. (OK, he didn't list gremlins directly.) I don't think he's telling us to abandon the drive to predict and control, but he's certainly pointing out the hubris in believing that we can do so. Consequently, I will now file something with a little fear and trembling. But before I do, here are some specifics, motivated by my will to order the details of his book.
"The Pitchman" describes the charismatic Ron Popeil, inventor and demonstrator of the Veg-o-Matic. Gladwell describes this amazing pitchman and others of his ilk, contrasting them with actors and ending with the syngergy created when Popeil's methods met live television.
"The Ketchup Coundrum" describes how various foods are developed, tested and marketed, but the central example explains why ketchup sells for staying focused whereas mustard and spaghetti sauce have diversified.
"Blowing Up" contrasts two methods of investing on Wall Street--finding patterns and banking on chaos.
"True Colors" draws the curtain back from the marketing strategies for hair coloring, revealing something about the mind of American women and how the women's movement made ripples through this market.
"John's Rock Error" explains the rationale of the Pill's inventor as he worked to resolve the science of birth control with his faith as a practicing Catholic.
"What the Dog Saw" describes how dogs are highly sensitive to the body language of humans, which explains why Ceasar Milan focuses on training owners as a way to better train dogs.
"Open Secrets" retraces the signs of Enron's risky practices and explains why people didn't see what became so apparent after its fall.
"Million Dollar Murray" provides shocking data on how the current policies on homelessness actually costs society a great deal of money.
"The Picture Problem" presents the complexities of properly reading mammographies, making screening for this type of cancer particularly challenging.
"Something Borrowed" discusses the gray areas in intellectual property and Gladwell's own experience of having his words sampled (without credit) into another person's work.
"Connecting the Dots" bears some similarity to the pattern problems discussed in the Enron article and the mammography article in its discussion of how challenging it is to predict acts of war and terrorism--not because of lack of information but because of an overabundance of it.
"Blowup" again talks about the issue of information overload, this time in the safety procedures put in place in the space program. Even though the O-rings were viewed as a trouble spot for any space flight, the risk-benefit analysis employed allowed the Challenger to launch, which resulted in tragedy.
"Late Bloomers" contrasts two forms of genius: the young, experimental types vs. the older, practice-makes-perfect type. The examples of Picasso vs. Cezzanne crystalize his theory, but this essay contains more examples for good measure.
"Most Likely to Succeed" describes the challenge talent scouts have in predicting an athlete's performance in the NFL based on his performance in college football. It turns out that the two games are vastly different, requiring a different set of skills for success.
"Dangerous Minds" compares the work of criminal profilers to the work of psychologists, detectives, psychics and other who seek to find a connection between crime and criminal.
"The Talent Myth" suggests that the value placed on talent has set up some companies and sports teams to overlook other important aspects of their "players." Gladwell examines the corporate culture of a handful of companies, such as Enron, Proctor & Gamble, and Southwest--each time looking at how the leaders evaluate performance, personality and group dynamics.
"The New-Boy Network" hones in on the job interview as an information-gathering task. He surveys psychologists, human resource directors, job applicants and bosses in an effort to describe the dynamics of the interview.
"Troublemakers" examines the stereotypes about dangerous dog breeds and the statistics for fatal bites. As he did in the title essay about Milan's work with dogs, Gladwell moves his gaze from examining the dog to examining the environment fostered by the dog's owner to ask whether or not banning particular breeds really serves as the best response to the problem of dangerous breeds.
September 3, 2012
"One day, I'll find a lively, out-of-context anecdote that superficially explains why Malcolm Gladwell bugs me. Until then? I guess he wins."
— Merlin Mann
- - -
What The Dog Saw is a series of catchy social-science essays by Malcom Gladwell, best known for his long-form books The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. The book's essays are culled from a decade worth of his writing in The New Yorker.
I'm on the fence about Malcolm Gladwell. On one hand, his books are thought-provoking and enjoyable. On the other hand, they dabble excessively in storytelling-presented-as-fact. Compared to his books, these 20-30 page essays further soften Gladwell's soft-science approach by simultaneously making his points less pointed and his subject more broad. The essays occasionally felt sprawling and fact-free, bundling casual observations into a scientific-seeming hypothesis. With that said, there were a handful of essays here which were truly outstanding.
While interesting, I took these essays with a big grain of salt and just enjoyed them for enjoyment's sake. If you're new to Gladwell, I'd start with one of his books instead.
— Merlin Mann
- - -
What The Dog Saw is a series of catchy social-science essays by Malcom Gladwell, best known for his long-form books The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. The book's essays are culled from a decade worth of his writing in The New Yorker.
I'm on the fence about Malcolm Gladwell. On one hand, his books are thought-provoking and enjoyable. On the other hand, they dabble excessively in storytelling-presented-as-fact. Compared to his books, these 20-30 page essays further soften Gladwell's soft-science approach by simultaneously making his points less pointed and his subject more broad. The essays occasionally felt sprawling and fact-free, bundling casual observations into a scientific-seeming hypothesis. With that said, there were a handful of essays here which were truly outstanding.
While interesting, I took these essays with a big grain of salt and just enjoyed them for enjoyment's sake. If you're new to Gladwell, I'd start with one of his books instead.
June 14, 2023
A selection of Gladwell’s writings, most of which appeared originally in the New Yorker magazine.
The book has three clusters of essays. The first is about entrepreneurs and “minor geniuses,” such as Ron Popeil of kitchen gadget infomercial fame. Others are Shirley Polykoff, ad writer for Clairol, and Caesar Millan, aka the Dog Whisperer.
A lot of this first section is about advertising. We get the now-famous musings about the jam and jelly studies - consumers get overwhelmed by too many choices. Then there are the spaghetti sauce studies: we really can’t conceptualize what we want -- remember the Edsel? But we know it when we taste it and (surprise!) we prefer chunky sauce.
The second section is a mixed bag about theorizing and predicting. We read of the Challenger disaster’s O-rings and the judgment calls involved in information sensing in fields as superficially disparate as air photo interpretation and mammography.
The last section is about 'personality' and we read essays telling us how little we really learn about people from job interviews and how off-the-mark criminal profiling really is.
Great, thought-provoking essays with Gladwell’s easy-to-read but over-confident style of writing.
[Revised 6/14/23]
The book has three clusters of essays. The first is about entrepreneurs and “minor geniuses,” such as Ron Popeil of kitchen gadget infomercial fame. Others are Shirley Polykoff, ad writer for Clairol, and Caesar Millan, aka the Dog Whisperer.
A lot of this first section is about advertising. We get the now-famous musings about the jam and jelly studies - consumers get overwhelmed by too many choices. Then there are the spaghetti sauce studies: we really can’t conceptualize what we want -- remember the Edsel? But we know it when we taste it and (surprise!) we prefer chunky sauce.
The second section is a mixed bag about theorizing and predicting. We read of the Challenger disaster’s O-rings and the judgment calls involved in information sensing in fields as superficially disparate as air photo interpretation and mammography.
The last section is about 'personality' and we read essays telling us how little we really learn about people from job interviews and how off-the-mark criminal profiling really is.
Great, thought-provoking essays with Gladwell’s easy-to-read but over-confident style of writing.
[Revised 6/14/23]
April 23, 2011
Not my typical reading fare - you can tell by the dearth of nonfiction on my Goodreads shelf and the time it took me to read this. What the Dog Saw is divided into three sections: Part 1 - Obsessives, Pioneers, and Other Varieties of Minor Genius, Part 2 - Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, and Part 3 - Personality, Character, and Intelligence.
I didn't enjoy Part 1 as much as 2 or 3 because I could not connect with the anecdotes or the characters within each short story. They weren't actual fiction stories but little narratives of real events that happened - I suppose the fact that I read this portion of the book in a similar way to fiction showcases Malcolm Gladwell's storytelling talent.
Part 2 was where I started to get hooked. My two favorite stories were Something Borrowed and The Art of Failure. Something Borrowed questioned plagiarism and how society perceives it today as opposed to in the past. The Art of Failure began with describing a tennis match and transitioned into the difference between choking and panicking.
I loved every story of Part 3 - I read the entire section in a day. Gladwell writes about aspects of contemporary society with a fine felicity. This part of the book made buying it worth the money.
What the Dog Saw is an extraordinary collection of essays that are written with intelligence and precision. The research Malcolm Gladwell must have put into each of these stories amazes me - now I want to reread some of his previously published works.
Want to read more of my writing? Follow me here.
I didn't enjoy Part 1 as much as 2 or 3 because I could not connect with the anecdotes or the characters within each short story. They weren't actual fiction stories but little narratives of real events that happened - I suppose the fact that I read this portion of the book in a similar way to fiction showcases Malcolm Gladwell's storytelling talent.
Part 2 was where I started to get hooked. My two favorite stories were Something Borrowed and The Art of Failure. Something Borrowed questioned plagiarism and how society perceives it today as opposed to in the past. The Art of Failure began with describing a tennis match and transitioned into the difference between choking and panicking.
I loved every story of Part 3 - I read the entire section in a day. Gladwell writes about aspects of contemporary society with a fine felicity. This part of the book made buying it worth the money.
What the Dog Saw is an extraordinary collection of essays that are written with intelligence and precision. The research Malcolm Gladwell must have put into each of these stories amazes me - now I want to reread some of his previously published works.
Want to read more of my writing? Follow me here.
October 1, 2012
Probably the best Malcolm Gladwell book that I've read, and I've read them all.
September 24, 2016
This could be my least favorite book for Gladwell. In my opinion, it is usually hard to construct a book that is likeable enough, out of a collection of articles or blogs. I honestly didn't expect too much out of it.
However, being my least favorite doesn't make it bad. It is actually good, real good. For a book that compiles several titles, Galdwell did a good job in explaining each idea and support it with social experiments and Statistics. I can't say that I liked EVERY article, because I didn't. However there were many which piqued my interest.
In What The Dog Saw, for example, Malcom categorizes failure into : Panicking and Choking. He states that at time of possible failure, a human could fall into either Thinking too much, or Not Thinking at all. Depending on the situation, panicking or choking could lead to either saving that person, or rushing him to his death.
Another example is the effect of plagiarism should pose on someone life. He tells the story of a psychologist invested in studying serial killers who got her book stolen to every last word and turned into a play. Was this thing too bad? Did it have a good impact on the Society?
and my most favorite topic is certainly the last one in the book. The fate of all Pitballs were determined because of an accident in which 3 small dogs attacked a child, and the state decided that no one could own a pitball. Poor dogs. Malcom ensures that the cause incident is more complex that one may think. Banning one species will certainly not gonna solve the problem, and in his book, he shall tell you why.
What The Dog Saw is a great attempt in a creating a collection of quite interesting stories which tackles a lot of topics at the heart of Sociology, Economy, and Psychology.
However, being my least favorite doesn't make it bad. It is actually good, real good. For a book that compiles several titles, Galdwell did a good job in explaining each idea and support it with social experiments and Statistics. I can't say that I liked EVERY article, because I didn't. However there were many which piqued my interest.
In What The Dog Saw, for example, Malcom categorizes failure into : Panicking and Choking. He states that at time of possible failure, a human could fall into either Thinking too much, or Not Thinking at all. Depending on the situation, panicking or choking could lead to either saving that person, or rushing him to his death.
Another example is the effect of plagiarism should pose on someone life. He tells the story of a psychologist invested in studying serial killers who got her book stolen to every last word and turned into a play. Was this thing too bad? Did it have a good impact on the Society?
and my most favorite topic is certainly the last one in the book. The fate of all Pitballs were determined because of an accident in which 3 small dogs attacked a child, and the state decided that no one could own a pitball. Poor dogs. Malcom ensures that the cause incident is more complex that one may think. Banning one species will certainly not gonna solve the problem, and in his book, he shall tell you why.
What The Dog Saw is a great attempt in a creating a collection of quite interesting stories which tackles a lot of topics at the heart of Sociology, Economy, and Psychology.
May 13, 2021
What the Dog saw….
What the Dog Saw … is sort of a bunch of essays that Gladwell has published in The New Yorker.
What I like about his work is that it is packed with common sense and good judgment, but always from his point of view… and then the dog’s. What always draws me in is his ability to ferret out the hidden facts that are quite visible, once he points them out.
He finds the most interesting points in things like selling kitchen appliances, or the Ketchup wars, and contraceptive pills… did you know that had they been marketed differently, the Catholic Church would have probably given them a blessing and a pass? My favorite was Cesar– the celebrity dog-whisperer and how he works.
The book continues with a Gladwell review of the Enron investigation… and homeless people. He always has his eye on moral dilemmas…
If you like straightforward writing … you can’t avoid reading this.
4 stars
Happy Reading!
What the Dog Saw … is sort of a bunch of essays that Gladwell has published in The New Yorker.
What I like about his work is that it is packed with common sense and good judgment, but always from his point of view… and then the dog’s. What always draws me in is his ability to ferret out the hidden facts that are quite visible, once he points them out.
He finds the most interesting points in things like selling kitchen appliances, or the Ketchup wars, and contraceptive pills… did you know that had they been marketed differently, the Catholic Church would have probably given them a blessing and a pass? My favorite was Cesar– the celebrity dog-whisperer and how he works.
The book continues with a Gladwell review of the Enron investigation… and homeless people. He always has his eye on moral dilemmas…
If you like straightforward writing … you can’t avoid reading this.
4 stars
Happy Reading!
September 5, 2022
Malcolm Gladwell is a Canadian journalist, author and speaker who has written 6 books.
What the Dog Saw is a compilation of 19 articles by Malcolm Gladwell that were originally published in The New Yorker and are categorized into three parts. The first part, Obsessives, Pioneers, and other varieties of Minor Genius, describes people who are very good at what they do, but are not necessarily well-known. Part two, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, describes the problems associated with prediction. This section covers problems such as intelligence failure, and the fall of Enron. The third section, Personality, Character, and Intelligence, discusses a wide variety of psychological and sociological topics ranging from the difference between early and late bloomers to criminal profiling.
I listened to the author read his book. I liked all of the 19 stories; learned something new from each one. My favorites?
1) John Rock's Error
What the co-inventor of the Pill
didn't know about menstruation
can endanger women's health.
2) The Picture Problem
Mammography, Air Power, The Limits of Looking
These two dealt with women's health issues and really spoke to me.
The links for all 19 articles can be found on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_th...
4 stars
What the Dog Saw is a compilation of 19 articles by Malcolm Gladwell that were originally published in The New Yorker and are categorized into three parts. The first part, Obsessives, Pioneers, and other varieties of Minor Genius, describes people who are very good at what they do, but are not necessarily well-known. Part two, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, describes the problems associated with prediction. This section covers problems such as intelligence failure, and the fall of Enron. The third section, Personality, Character, and Intelligence, discusses a wide variety of psychological and sociological topics ranging from the difference between early and late bloomers to criminal profiling.
I listened to the author read his book. I liked all of the 19 stories; learned something new from each one. My favorites?
1) John Rock's Error
What the co-inventor of the Pill
didn't know about menstruation
can endanger women's health.
2) The Picture Problem
Mammography, Air Power, The Limits of Looking
These two dealt with women's health issues and really spoke to me.
The links for all 19 articles can be found on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_th...
4 stars
April 13, 2011
I finally-finally finished it! But not because it is boring - it is collection of articles by Gladwell, so it does not go down like one single book. All articles clearly demonstrate inquisitive mind and quick wit of Gladwell, but not all of them are of equal interest and thrill. Some articles feel like they are concocted out of thin air, some are too plain and unexcited. But I was fascinated by the stories of colorant revolution in the US, value of talent and specifics of human perceptions at job interviews.
February 27, 2010
A little background: I really love Malcolm Gladwell. I was first introduced to him through my Persuasion class I took while studying abroad last summer. We had to read Blink, his first published book; it was one of the most interesting books I have ever read for a class. He is no stranger to writing, though. His full-time occupation is as a journalist for the New Yorker.
Why is he so amazing, might you ask? I'll tell you. Malcolm Gladwell has this amazing ability in his writing to find things that are seemingly unrelated ideas and anecdotes, and relate them to each other in radical ways. What the Dog Saw is different than his previous books, in that it is a compilation of articles he has written for the New Yorker, organized around a cohesive idea: people who try to understand other people. Here's a short summary of each chapter/article:
1) The Pitchmen. This article talks about the original family of pitchmen (like Billy Mays). Basically the Popeil family is reallyl inventive and can sell people boxes of crap because they're so good at their job (... not that they would ever sell you a crappy product). Not only are they excellent pitchmen, but they would spend countless hours in the workshop. One of their inventions, the kitchen rotisserie, had over 200 patents on it alone.
2) The Ketchup Conundrum. Why is it that there are dozens of kinds of mustard but only one kind of ketchup? Well it turns out there are a lot of reasons. For example, did you know that there are five kinds of taste? Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter, and Umami. Umami is a more recent discovery, as it's much harder to place than the first four kinds of taste. It comes from protein and amino acids (so it's prevelant in foods like chicken noodle soup and seaweed). Ketchup is a rare food that has all five tastes in one and is all perfectly blended so you're not left with the aftertaste of one over another. A lot of other reasons, too. Who knew ketchup was so fascinating!
3) Blowing Up. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of this chapter because it talked about investments and other stuff that my knowledge is sketchy on. It was still really interesting, though. Basically it talks about this guy, Nassim Taleb, takes a completely different approach to investments than anybody else. His way is harder for people to accept, because it can lead to losing small amounts of money over a long period of time with no risk of losing big time, rather than the current way which is to take a huge risk that can either pay off big or leave you completely destitute.
4) True Colors. The history of hair dye. The story of a beauty product that ended up being deeply connected to women and their changing identities through the fifties and sixties. The way in which they were advertised by two women prominent in the advertising industry mirrored the way women felt about themselves and what dying their hair meant to them and the role they played in society.
5) John Rock's Error. One of my favorite pieces, this article talks about the history of birth control. So much info here, about the relevance of Catholicism to the method of the pill, how women's menstraul cycles have changed with modern times and technology, and the medical benefits of birth control (being on the pill lowers your risk of ovarian cancer -- crazy!)
6) What the Dog Saw. This article is about Millan the Dog Whisperer, how he came to his job, how he works with dogs, and with people, and the body gestures and signals that we process subconsciously that leads to his success.
7) Open Secrets. Enron, the huge scandal of the 90's, was actually not as secretive as firsts accused. Rather, it shows the problem of too much information, rather than not enough. Enron did not hide anything so much as they did not explain how their business worked in a way that was understood by the majority of people (including most of the people on their executive board).
8) Million-Dollar Murray. Homelessness is actually cheaper to solve by giving them paid-for apartments and individual service than things like homeless shelters and soup kitchens. In general, the majority of homeless people are not homeless for long; it is only a few people that are costing the big bucks, the chronically homeless. Fix them, and you fix the bulk of the problem.
9) The Picture Problem. Another fascinating article for women. In overview, reading and interpreting mammograms correctly is a much sketchier process than we might realize. He relates it, quite well, to the problem the military has with correclty interpreting infrared pictures of possible terrorist targets.
10) Something Borrowed. Should plagiarism in writing be that big of a deal? He has a personal anecdote here of a woman who wrote a play that became very famous, but was quickly pulled after she was accused by a woman of having her life story blatantly used as the plot of the main character, based off an article that Malcolm Gladwell had written about her. While the woman had a legitimate complaint, Gladwell muses about the morality of plagiarism, and the idea that all art and creativity is based off something else, which makes a very fine line.
11) Connecting the Dots. Was the terrorist of 9/11 really preventable? The previous chapter on Enron touches on the fact of too much information can be worse than too little, and that same argument is made here. American intelligence agencies had so much information, so many "tips", that it became very difficult to separate the fact from the fiction. It's not about having the information, but being able to connect the dots between what is already there.
12) The Art of Failure. What is the difference between "choking" and "panicking"? Turns out, quite a lot. Both create separate physical reactions and come from different places. Here Gladwell goes into the plane crash of the Kennedy son, what he was experiencing at the time, and why it happened.
13) Blowup. Who is to blame for the explosion of NASA's Challenger? Human nature wants to say that something can definitely be fixed, or somebody was definitely to blame, for an accident of that magnitude. But in reality, it wasn't one big blunder as much as a lot of little calculations, that individually are not considered critical, but all culminated at once to produce a disaster; and really, there's no way to prevent against that.
14) Late Bloomers. Why is it that we only call people "geniuses" if they come to fruition when they're young? Aren't old geniuses possible? Turns out, we have another term for them, "masters", and the approach of the two are completely different, but equally interesting.
15) Most Likely to Succeed. How do you hire someone if you don't know who qualifies for the job? Gladwell uses two examples here, quarterbacks who transition from college to pro, and financial advisors, to culminate into the idea that the system for hiring public school teachers is in need of a drastic reformation. All three of these areas are jobs where it is impossible to tell who is good at it until they are actually immersed in the program.
16) Dangerous Minds. Criminal profiling, at it's surface, seems an amazing ability of psychologists to get at the heart of a person based of superficial facts of a crime scene. However, it may be more of a hoax than originally thought, and not really that helpful in catching the bad guy.
17) The Talent Myth. Are smart people overrated? Enron comes into play again, as they had a different outlook on how people were promoted and rewarded in their company. If you were smart, if you had "talent", you got what you wanted and were given enormous responsibility, whether or not you were really qualified for the task. And... it may have blown up in their face.
18) The New-Boy Network. If you think about it, hiring somebody based off a piece of paper and spending at most an hour with them in an interview seems extremely superficial and basic. So why is it that we make such a big decision based off that? Again, more subconscious work at play here.
19) Troublemakers. One of the saddest articles, I think. Pit bulls are unfairly stereotyped in several countries, and in many states in the U.S. Banned as viscious and human aggressive dogs, the truth points more toward the owners of the dogs and the lifestyle the dog is brought up in.
Why is he so amazing, might you ask? I'll tell you. Malcolm Gladwell has this amazing ability in his writing to find things that are seemingly unrelated ideas and anecdotes, and relate them to each other in radical ways. What the Dog Saw is different than his previous books, in that it is a compilation of articles he has written for the New Yorker, organized around a cohesive idea: people who try to understand other people. Here's a short summary of each chapter/article:
1) The Pitchmen. This article talks about the original family of pitchmen (like Billy Mays). Basically the Popeil family is reallyl inventive and can sell people boxes of crap because they're so good at their job (... not that they would ever sell you a crappy product). Not only are they excellent pitchmen, but they would spend countless hours in the workshop. One of their inventions, the kitchen rotisserie, had over 200 patents on it alone.
2) The Ketchup Conundrum. Why is it that there are dozens of kinds of mustard but only one kind of ketchup? Well it turns out there are a lot of reasons. For example, did you know that there are five kinds of taste? Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter, and Umami. Umami is a more recent discovery, as it's much harder to place than the first four kinds of taste. It comes from protein and amino acids (so it's prevelant in foods like chicken noodle soup and seaweed). Ketchup is a rare food that has all five tastes in one and is all perfectly blended so you're not left with the aftertaste of one over another. A lot of other reasons, too. Who knew ketchup was so fascinating!
3) Blowing Up. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of this chapter because it talked about investments and other stuff that my knowledge is sketchy on. It was still really interesting, though. Basically it talks about this guy, Nassim Taleb, takes a completely different approach to investments than anybody else. His way is harder for people to accept, because it can lead to losing small amounts of money over a long period of time with no risk of losing big time, rather than the current way which is to take a huge risk that can either pay off big or leave you completely destitute.
4) True Colors. The history of hair dye. The story of a beauty product that ended up being deeply connected to women and their changing identities through the fifties and sixties. The way in which they were advertised by two women prominent in the advertising industry mirrored the way women felt about themselves and what dying their hair meant to them and the role they played in society.
5) John Rock's Error. One of my favorite pieces, this article talks about the history of birth control. So much info here, about the relevance of Catholicism to the method of the pill, how women's menstraul cycles have changed with modern times and technology, and the medical benefits of birth control (being on the pill lowers your risk of ovarian cancer -- crazy!)
6) What the Dog Saw. This article is about Millan the Dog Whisperer, how he came to his job, how he works with dogs, and with people, and the body gestures and signals that we process subconsciously that leads to his success.
7) Open Secrets. Enron, the huge scandal of the 90's, was actually not as secretive as firsts accused. Rather, it shows the problem of too much information, rather than not enough. Enron did not hide anything so much as they did not explain how their business worked in a way that was understood by the majority of people (including most of the people on their executive board).
8) Million-Dollar Murray. Homelessness is actually cheaper to solve by giving them paid-for apartments and individual service than things like homeless shelters and soup kitchens. In general, the majority of homeless people are not homeless for long; it is only a few people that are costing the big bucks, the chronically homeless. Fix them, and you fix the bulk of the problem.
9) The Picture Problem. Another fascinating article for women. In overview, reading and interpreting mammograms correctly is a much sketchier process than we might realize. He relates it, quite well, to the problem the military has with correclty interpreting infrared pictures of possible terrorist targets.
10) Something Borrowed. Should plagiarism in writing be that big of a deal? He has a personal anecdote here of a woman who wrote a play that became very famous, but was quickly pulled after she was accused by a woman of having her life story blatantly used as the plot of the main character, based off an article that Malcolm Gladwell had written about her. While the woman had a legitimate complaint, Gladwell muses about the morality of plagiarism, and the idea that all art and creativity is based off something else, which makes a very fine line.
11) Connecting the Dots. Was the terrorist of 9/11 really preventable? The previous chapter on Enron touches on the fact of too much information can be worse than too little, and that same argument is made here. American intelligence agencies had so much information, so many "tips", that it became very difficult to separate the fact from the fiction. It's not about having the information, but being able to connect the dots between what is already there.
12) The Art of Failure. What is the difference between "choking" and "panicking"? Turns out, quite a lot. Both create separate physical reactions and come from different places. Here Gladwell goes into the plane crash of the Kennedy son, what he was experiencing at the time, and why it happened.
13) Blowup. Who is to blame for the explosion of NASA's Challenger? Human nature wants to say that something can definitely be fixed, or somebody was definitely to blame, for an accident of that magnitude. But in reality, it wasn't one big blunder as much as a lot of little calculations, that individually are not considered critical, but all culminated at once to produce a disaster; and really, there's no way to prevent against that.
14) Late Bloomers. Why is it that we only call people "geniuses" if they come to fruition when they're young? Aren't old geniuses possible? Turns out, we have another term for them, "masters", and the approach of the two are completely different, but equally interesting.
15) Most Likely to Succeed. How do you hire someone if you don't know who qualifies for the job? Gladwell uses two examples here, quarterbacks who transition from college to pro, and financial advisors, to culminate into the idea that the system for hiring public school teachers is in need of a drastic reformation. All three of these areas are jobs where it is impossible to tell who is good at it until they are actually immersed in the program.
16) Dangerous Minds. Criminal profiling, at it's surface, seems an amazing ability of psychologists to get at the heart of a person based of superficial facts of a crime scene. However, it may be more of a hoax than originally thought, and not really that helpful in catching the bad guy.
17) The Talent Myth. Are smart people overrated? Enron comes into play again, as they had a different outlook on how people were promoted and rewarded in their company. If you were smart, if you had "talent", you got what you wanted and were given enormous responsibility, whether or not you were really qualified for the task. And... it may have blown up in their face.
18) The New-Boy Network. If you think about it, hiring somebody based off a piece of paper and spending at most an hour with them in an interview seems extremely superficial and basic. So why is it that we make such a big decision based off that? Again, more subconscious work at play here.
19) Troublemakers. One of the saddest articles, I think. Pit bulls are unfairly stereotyped in several countries, and in many states in the U.S. Banned as viscious and human aggressive dogs, the truth points more toward the owners of the dogs and the lifestyle the dog is brought up in.
April 29, 2015
This is a series of essays, non-fiction. They were very smart and interesting.
1.) The Pitchman is a about a salesman.
2.) The Ketchup Conundrum is about how tastes are developed and how people deal with challenges to that developed taste.
3.) Blowing Up is about investment strategy, it's kind of boring.
4.) True Colors. This is about hair dye and advertising. I liked it.
5.) John Rock's Error. This was about birth control. He raises some interesting points, but I don't know if I agree with all of them.
6.) What the Dog Saw. An article about Cesar Millan, the dog trainer. I really liked this article, even though it was less about training dogs and more about whether Millan knows some secret body-language.
7.) Open Secrets. An article about Entron.
8.) Million-Dollar Murray. An article about homelessness.
9.) The Picture Problem. About the limits of pictures, as tied to mammograms and satellite. Very interesting, and he brings up some good points about pictures.
10.) Something Borrowed. An article about plagiarism. He makes some very good and interesting points.
11.) Connecting the Dots. An article about national intelligence. He makes very good points.
12.) The Art of Failure. An article about the differences between choking and panicking. Very interesting.
13.) Blowup. An article about the Challenger, and NASA, and space missions failing.
14.) Late Bloomers. An interesting article on people who come into their talent later in life, and about sponsorship.
15.) Most Likely to Succeed. An interesting article about talent.
16.) Dangerous Minds. An interesting article about profiling.
17.) The Talent Myth. Are smart people overrated? How should companies be structured and operate?
18.) The New-Boy Network. An article about job interviews, judgment and first impressions.
19.) Troublemakers. An article about pit bulls. Are they dangerous, or is it their owners? Making assumptions about NYC being violent. Racial profiling. Very interesting.
1.) The Pitchman is a about a salesman.
2.) The Ketchup Conundrum is about how tastes are developed and how people deal with challenges to that developed taste.
3.) Blowing Up is about investment strategy, it's kind of boring.
4.) True Colors. This is about hair dye and advertising. I liked it.
5.) John Rock's Error. This was about birth control. He raises some interesting points, but I don't know if I agree with all of them.
6.) What the Dog Saw. An article about Cesar Millan, the dog trainer. I really liked this article, even though it was less about training dogs and more about whether Millan knows some secret body-language.
7.) Open Secrets. An article about Entron.
8.) Million-Dollar Murray. An article about homelessness.
9.) The Picture Problem. About the limits of pictures, as tied to mammograms and satellite. Very interesting, and he brings up some good points about pictures.
10.) Something Borrowed. An article about plagiarism. He makes some very good and interesting points.
11.) Connecting the Dots. An article about national intelligence. He makes very good points.
12.) The Art of Failure. An article about the differences between choking and panicking. Very interesting.
13.) Blowup. An article about the Challenger, and NASA, and space missions failing.
14.) Late Bloomers. An interesting article on people who come into their talent later in life, and about sponsorship.
15.) Most Likely to Succeed. An interesting article about talent.
16.) Dangerous Minds. An interesting article about profiling.
17.) The Talent Myth. Are smart people overrated? How should companies be structured and operate?
18.) The New-Boy Network. An article about job interviews, judgment and first impressions.
19.) Troublemakers. An article about pit bulls. Are they dangerous, or is it their owners? Making assumptions about NYC being violent. Racial profiling. Very interesting.
July 24, 2011
I know, I know. Malcolm Gladwell brings out extremes in readers. In one camp, you have rabid fans who think he is a transcendent genius, who will change previously held beliefs on the strength of one carefully crafted and engaging TED talk. On the other, you have cynics who sneer at the lemmings who behave as I previously described and dismiss him as a pop psychologist. Ok, perhaps that was even more extreme in my description, but the point is I'm in the middle. If one thinks of him as a philosopher type writer, who surveys the cultural landscape and synthesizes media into strangely compelling and interesting books and articles, I think it's far easier to just enjoy him, without having to laugh in one's sleeve at an over simplification, or get all starry eyed at an idea he is presenting. "What the Dog Saw" is a great compilation of a series of articles, broken down into three main sections based around certain themes. I really enjoyed this book, even though at times it seems he goes out of his way to pick the most disparate topics, compare them, and then make some far fetched and often counter intuitive conclusion- my partner and I joked that he is so contrary, one often just has to think of the commonly held idea around a subject, think of the total opposite, and one can safely bet Gladwell will set up camp around the latter. But again, if one takes him as a pondering philosopher, instead of a last word, infallible source, he is a great resource for sparking new thoughts on old ideas, and for re-examining long held beliefs. My favorite chapters were on homelessness in Denver, and plagiarism. I like that Gladwell seems to be a big, curious kid, willing to do research on random topics and hang out with weird (a compliment) people and write from a different point of view.
January 1, 2018
Each of the articles first appeared in The New Yorker and was handpicked by Gladwell to show us the world through the eyes of various people and even a dog. The book is divided in 3 parts: Obsessives, Pioneers, and other varieties of Minor Genius, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses and Personality, Character, and Intelligence.
August 29, 2021
Average, and very random. I can see why I hadn’t heard much about this one, maybe my least favorite Gladwell book.
Still, mildly interesting.
“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.”
Still, mildly interesting.
“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.”
February 11, 2010
I hadn't realized this was a collection of Gladwell's essays, many (most? all?) have seen publication in the New Yorker. I found this out while reading the New York Times essay on the book, Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective, by none other than Steven Pinker. His evaluation of What the Dog Saw is mostly laudatory pretty hostile*, although and he takes the opportunity to get a dig in at Outliers:
And just for the sake of completeness, the New York Times published a "profile" of Gladwell, back in 2006, entitled The Gladwell Effect, by Rachel Donadio, which includes two pictures showing Gladwell's exuberant hair at two degrees of shornness. Bonus! (Although not quite as luxurious as Pinker's tresses...)
* Review edited for accuracy after I was prompted to read it more carefully!
The reasoning in “Outliers,” which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle. Fortunately for “What the Dog Saw,” the essay format is a better showcase for Gladwell’s talents, because the constraints of length and editors yield a higher ratio of fact to fancy.The "official" New York Times review of What the Dog Saw is Changing the Subject, Maintaining the Tone by Janet Maslin.
And just for the sake of completeness, the New York Times published a "profile" of Gladwell, back in 2006, entitled The Gladwell Effect, by Rachel Donadio, which includes two pictures showing Gladwell's exuberant hair at two degrees of shornness. Bonus! (Although not quite as luxurious as Pinker's tresses...)
* Review edited for accuracy after I was prompted to read it more carefully!
Read
August 7, 2011MMmmm... Leftover scraps... This book felt like a forced dish of leftovers from other books or articles. It lacked a clear central theme to derive a clear lesson unlike other books in Gladwell's collection like Tipping Point (Small things builds critical mass and changes norm), Blink (Small samples can help make valuable decisions), Outliers (10,000 hours of practice to achieve greatness). This book was just a mish-mash of stories, some good, some so so, but mostly unrelated or at least I was too dumb to get the central theme. Gladwell's story telling capabilities were intact so it was still somewhat entertaining but the lack of a central theme made me feel it it was running all over the place with it's head cut off. He goes from understanding a kitchen gadget inventor to why there's more flavors of mustard than ketchup to investment philosophies of hedge funds to pit bull bans... Ya? Confused? Me too!! This one is definitely not Gladwell's best work but it's not horrendous... So put it off until you've run out of other books...
February 23, 2020
I like this author. I like the way he draws a line connecting what seems like perfectly random things or ideas. My friend says this particular author always writes in hindsight. I don't even know what he means by that but I'd listen to anything this author writes because I am always entertained. It is kind of fascinating how his mind works.
Now with all that said, this particular book wasn't my favorite, but he made my afternoon a lovely ride. So 3 stars.
Now with all that said, this particular book wasn't my favorite, but he made my afternoon a lovely ride. So 3 stars.
February 28, 2023
আউটলায়ার্স আমার পড়া হয়নাই। গ্লাডওয়েল পড়লাম প্রথম বলতে গেলে। তার বিষয়বস্তু নির্বাচন চমৎকার। কলামিস্ট হিসেবে বেশ উপভোগ্যও তার লেখা। এই বইয়ে বেশ কয়েকটা অধ্যায় আছে। নামের কারণে ভেবে নেওয়ার কারণ নেই সবগুলো অধ্যায় একে অন্যের সাথে সংযুক্ত। প্রথম রচনাটি ভালো লাগার একটা কারণ - এই লেখায় গ্লাডওয়েল মোটামুটি দেখাতে পেরেছেন যে, এমনকি যারা ক্যানভাসার ও সেলসম্যান - তারা কিভাবে শিল্পী হয়ে উঠতে পারে নিজেদের কাজে।
পুরো বইয়ে আমার প্রিয় লেখা তিনটি, মানে এই তিনটি লেখার জন্য এ বইকে আমি চার তারা দিয়েছি। এক, ক্যাচাপ কোনানড্রাম। কেন কেচাপ আজও জনপ্রিয়, আর মাস্টার্ড সস কেনো সম্ভাবনা জাগিয়েও কেচাপকে হারাতে পারল না? আমেরিকান বাজার, কারবারি, আর ক্রেতাদের মনোভাব নিয়ে দারুণ সব এনালিসিস আছে, যা আসলে পৃথিবীর যে কোন বাজারের জন্য, সম্ভবত, প্রাসঙ্গিক।
দ্বিতীয় প্রিয় লেখা নাসিম তালেবকে নিয়ে। শেয়ার বাজার, সম্ভাবনা, ভাগ্য, অসুস্থতা - এইসব নিয়ে এক বিচিত্র লেখা, যা থেকে বোঝা চলে তালেবের বিখ্যাত ব্ল্যাক সোয়ান থিওরির জন্মটা তার জীবন থেকেই হয়েছিল, বেশ উপভোগ্য একটা আলাপ।
আর সবচেয়ে পছন্দের লেখাটি আসলে হোয়াট দ্য ডগ স। এই লেখার বিষয়বস্তু আমার নিজের জীবনের সঙ্গেও মেলে। আমি কিভাবে কুকুরদের আবিষ্কার করেছি আর বিখ্যাত ডগ হুইস্পেরার সিজার মেলান কিভাবে করেছিলো? কুকুর আমরা অনেকেই ভয় পাই বা খুব ভালোবাসি, কিন্তু কুকুর কি আমাদের ভয় পায়? ওরা আসলে মানুষকে কিভাবে চিহ্নিত করে?
এই বইয়ের সঙ্গে আমি বেশ দীর্ঘ একটা সময় কাটিয়েছি। আমার সঙ্গে বইটা দেশের নানান প্রান্তে ঘুরেও বেড়িয়েছে আরও অনেক বইয়ের মতো। এই আলাপটা লিখলাম একেবারেই স্মৃতি থেকে। কেননা, বইটা আমার পড়ার টেবিল থেকে পুনরায় বুকশেলফে ফিরে গিয়েছে, তার গায়ে নিশ্চয় জমে উঠেছে ধুলো।
পুরো বইয়ে আমার প্রিয় লেখা তিনটি, মানে এই তিনটি লেখার জন্য এ বইকে আমি চার তারা দিয়েছি। এক, ক্যাচাপ কোনানড্রাম। কেন কেচাপ আজও জনপ্রিয়, আর মাস্টার্ড সস কেনো সম্ভাবনা জাগিয়েও কেচাপকে হারাতে পারল না? আমেরিকান বাজার, কারবারি, আর ক্রেতাদের মনোভাব নিয়ে দারুণ সব এনালিসিস আছে, যা আসলে পৃথিবীর যে কোন বাজারের জন্য, সম্ভবত, প্রাসঙ্গিক।
দ্বিতীয় প্রিয় লেখা নাসিম তালেবকে নিয়ে। শেয়ার বাজার, সম্ভাবনা, ভাগ্য, অসুস্থতা - এইসব নিয়ে এক বিচিত্র লেখা, যা থেকে বোঝা চলে তালেবের বিখ্যাত ব্ল্যাক সোয়ান থিওরির জন্মটা তার জীবন থেকেই হয়েছিল, বেশ উপভোগ্য একটা আলাপ।
আর সবচেয়ে পছন্দের লেখাটি আসলে হোয়াট দ্য ডগ স। এই লেখার বিষয়বস্তু আমার নিজের জীবনের সঙ্গেও মেলে। আমি কিভাবে কুকুরদের আবিষ্কার করেছি আর বিখ্যাত ডগ হুইস্পেরার সিজার মেলান কিভাবে করেছিলো? কুকুর আমরা অনেকেই ভয় পাই বা খুব ভালোবাসি, কিন্তু কুকুর কি আমাদের ভয় পায়? ওরা আসলে মানুষকে কিভাবে চিহ্নিত করে?
এই বইয়ের সঙ্গে আমি বেশ দীর্ঘ একটা সময় কাটিয়েছি। আমার সঙ্গে বইটা দেশের নানান প্রান্তে ঘুরেও বেড়িয়েছে আরও অনেক বইয়ের মতো। এই আলাপটা লিখলাম একেবারেই স্মৃতি থেকে। কেননা, বইটা আমার পড়ার টেবিল থেকে পুনরায় বুকশেলফে ফিরে গিয়েছে, তার গায়ে নিশ্চয় জমে উঠেছে ধুলো।
December 6, 2011
After being rejected by more than a dozen advertising agencies, Malcolm Gladwell went from obscurity to literary reverence. I mean the guy can write. Not just write but write about stuff we take so for granted and wish we had asked the same questions he asks.
One of the most imaginative non-fiction writers of our times, a man who not has had 3 best sellers and a title to die for (being judged as the Time magazine’s 100 most influential people) – his strength is his innate ability to make his readers think and think really deep.
Gladwell’s latest concoction of articles that he mixed into this recipe titled ‘What the dog saw’ is not just another master-piece in itself, it boarder lines between absolute genius to total unwanted and unnecessary banal details of generalized points of view, leaving you with many more questions than you would hope for. I mean the guy is great in his observations but then again you would ask yourself, do you really want to know all what he has spend time researching on or is it better to just know a few bits and forget the rest? I think that is a question you would have to ask yourself.
So what do we have in this brilliant bible of articles? Here are a few thoughts..
Have you ever wondered why there is only one kind of ketchup but so many kinds of mustards?
What made the Veg-O-Matic so successful and why?
Cesar Millan, the American "Dog Whisperer" – How did he manage to tame any ferocious wild dog by just ‘whispering’ to the dog…Or rather…what did the dog see that the dog choose to listen to an unknown human being?
All this and much more with the shards of Nassim Taleb (author of the best seller ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Fooled by Randomness’) to where Led Zeppelin got his magic note in ‘Whole Lotta Love’, to the toxic historical disasters of Enron, the envious success of George Soros and Warren Buffet and finally to why it is a venial sin to prognosticate either breeds of dogs, serial killers or for that matter successful corporate honchos.
The book is filled with all these brilliant findings that make you think and at times give you an awful headache as to how much there is to know. But you have to admit – the indefatigably curious journalist and writer whose brand today is defined in terms of ‘counter intuitive findings from little known experts’, I have to admit, I love reading his work.
The only criticism Malcolm Gladwell can face is being categorized as an eccentric essayist and a dilettante who postulates inconspicuous statistical data spiced up with misleading definitions and magnifies it to sound very credible and convincing yet banal, boring and bluntly ineffective.
I would only tell those critics – Shut up dude. I honestly didn’t understand what you said. But I did understand what Malcolm is trying to say (though deep down I still wonder if I did…)
All in all, brilliant read and a worth while addition to your collection of books though many a times, it can be boring having stacked up with excessive information which you may not want to know about.
Overall rating – 6 out of 10.
One of the most imaginative non-fiction writers of our times, a man who not has had 3 best sellers and a title to die for (being judged as the Time magazine’s 100 most influential people) – his strength is his innate ability to make his readers think and think really deep.
Gladwell’s latest concoction of articles that he mixed into this recipe titled ‘What the dog saw’ is not just another master-piece in itself, it boarder lines between absolute genius to total unwanted and unnecessary banal details of generalized points of view, leaving you with many more questions than you would hope for. I mean the guy is great in his observations but then again you would ask yourself, do you really want to know all what he has spend time researching on or is it better to just know a few bits and forget the rest? I think that is a question you would have to ask yourself.
So what do we have in this brilliant bible of articles? Here are a few thoughts..
Have you ever wondered why there is only one kind of ketchup but so many kinds of mustards?
What made the Veg-O-Matic so successful and why?
Cesar Millan, the American "Dog Whisperer" – How did he manage to tame any ferocious wild dog by just ‘whispering’ to the dog…Or rather…what did the dog see that the dog choose to listen to an unknown human being?
All this and much more with the shards of Nassim Taleb (author of the best seller ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Fooled by Randomness’) to where Led Zeppelin got his magic note in ‘Whole Lotta Love’, to the toxic historical disasters of Enron, the envious success of George Soros and Warren Buffet and finally to why it is a venial sin to prognosticate either breeds of dogs, serial killers or for that matter successful corporate honchos.
The book is filled with all these brilliant findings that make you think and at times give you an awful headache as to how much there is to know. But you have to admit – the indefatigably curious journalist and writer whose brand today is defined in terms of ‘counter intuitive findings from little known experts’, I have to admit, I love reading his work.
The only criticism Malcolm Gladwell can face is being categorized as an eccentric essayist and a dilettante who postulates inconspicuous statistical data spiced up with misleading definitions and magnifies it to sound very credible and convincing yet banal, boring and bluntly ineffective.
I would only tell those critics – Shut up dude. I honestly didn’t understand what you said. But I did understand what Malcolm is trying to say (though deep down I still wonder if I did…)
All in all, brilliant read and a worth while addition to your collection of books though many a times, it can be boring having stacked up with excessive information which you may not want to know about.
Overall rating – 6 out of 10.
January 19, 2010
There seems to have been a bit of a backlash against Malcolm Gladwell during the last year, but this book, a collection of his New Yorker pieces, reminds us why he achieved such prominence to begin with. Gladwell's particular talent is to take a subject which might seem initially to be irredeemably dull and to poke at it from all sides until he locates the particular angle which will allow him to tell a story, simultaneously entertaining and edifying his readers. There's a little more to it than that, of course: in particular, a seemingly unbounded curiosity about why the world is the way it is, and the skill to craft narratives that engage the general reader without being either boring or condescending. One of the factors which contributes greatly to his success is an almost uncanny ability to explain technically complicated material in an accessible manner - he makes this seem so effortless that I think people have begun to take this aspect of his work for granted. I think it's anything but effortless, that it takes hard work every time and he is one of only a handful of writers to pull it off regularly. You may find yourself disagreeing with something that Gladwell is telling you, but you generally won't have too much difficulty figuring it out.
Gladwell groups the essays in this book into three broad categories:
Part 1: Obsessives, pioneers, and other varieties of minor genius
Part 2: Theories, predictions, and diagnoses
Part 3: Personality, character, and intelligence
In the first part, which includes profiles of Ron Popeil (the infomercial king), Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer), Nassim Taleb (contrarian investor and author of "Fooled by Randomness"), as well as chapters on ketchup, hair coloring, and the history of the contraceptive pill, Gladwell sticks closest to his source material, avoiding the kind of premature generalization that is his Achilles heel. He isn't always successful in doing so in the remaining parts so that, while his lucid common sense on the topics of mammography, plagiarism, homelessness, and criminal profiling is a breath of fresh air, his arguments about organizational culture (the Enron debacle, the Challenger explosion) and predictors of individual performance (why some people choke and others panic, are smart people overrated?) are not entirely persuasive.
Nonetheless, this is a fine collection. Gladwell on a bad day still manages to eclipse most other non-fiction writers out there.
Gladwell groups the essays in this book into three broad categories:
Part 1: Obsessives, pioneers, and other varieties of minor genius
Part 2: Theories, predictions, and diagnoses
Part 3: Personality, character, and intelligence
In the first part, which includes profiles of Ron Popeil (the infomercial king), Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer), Nassim Taleb (contrarian investor and author of "Fooled by Randomness"), as well as chapters on ketchup, hair coloring, and the history of the contraceptive pill, Gladwell sticks closest to his source material, avoiding the kind of premature generalization that is his Achilles heel. He isn't always successful in doing so in the remaining parts so that, while his lucid common sense on the topics of mammography, plagiarism, homelessness, and criminal profiling is a breath of fresh air, his arguments about organizational culture (the Enron debacle, the Challenger explosion) and predictors of individual performance (why some people choke and others panic, are smart people overrated?) are not entirely persuasive.
Nonetheless, this is a fine collection. Gladwell on a bad day still manages to eclipse most other non-fiction writers out there.
June 6, 2011
Non-Fiction. A collection of essays previously published in The New Yorker, with publication dates ranging from 1997 to 2008.
Gladwell is at his pop science best here, taking on Enron, corporate hiring practices, pitbulls, homelessness, Cesar Millan, plagiarism, and the hair color industry. He even manages to make stock options transparent for a while. As always, his writing is deft, easy, and accessible.
I particularly enjoyed the piece on the Morris-Popeil (of the Ron Popeil Popeils) Dynasty, the essay on ketchup and why it's no mustard (this made me crave French fries so desperately I nearly threw the book down and took off for McDonald's mid-essay), and the articles on military intelligence and mammograms.
The essay on birth control was one of the first things I'd ever read by Gladwell and it impressed me a lot at the time. Today it raised more questions than praise. The essay, written in 2000, says the Pill was wrongly accused of causing blood clots in the late 1960s. Oral contraceptives cause blood clots now, but they also have a vastly different hormonal profile than the original Pill. A brief Google of the internet has nothing to say on the subject, so I can't back myself up here, but something's off. Gladwell adds footnotes to update several articles, but the blood clot issue -- as well as new findings connecting artificial hormones and cancer in female bodies -- goes unaddressed.
Several of these pieces felt too short; I'd turn the page and be surprised it was over, and if you've read Blink you're already familiar with the concept, and much of the research, behind "The New-Boy Network," but if you like Gladwell, you'll like this book.
Four stars. Gladwell has a real gift for setting a scene and getting across a lot of information in a way that doesn't make it feel like someone dumped an encyclopedia on your head.
eBook related content: This epub has a footnote to nowhere! Actually, it links to a different, unrelated footnote, but that was weird. A bigger problem is that almost every acronym in this book is rendered in italics for no good reason. And it's not consistent; if the acronym is near certain punctuation marks, it's not in italics. Obviously the formatting got borked somewhere.
Gladwell is at his pop science best here, taking on Enron, corporate hiring practices, pitbulls, homelessness, Cesar Millan, plagiarism, and the hair color industry. He even manages to make stock options transparent for a while. As always, his writing is deft, easy, and accessible.
I particularly enjoyed the piece on the Morris-Popeil (of the Ron Popeil Popeils) Dynasty, the essay on ketchup and why it's no mustard (this made me crave French fries so desperately I nearly threw the book down and took off for McDonald's mid-essay), and the articles on military intelligence and mammograms.
The essay on birth control was one of the first things I'd ever read by Gladwell and it impressed me a lot at the time. Today it raised more questions than praise. The essay, written in 2000, says the Pill was wrongly accused of causing blood clots in the late 1960s. Oral contraceptives cause blood clots now, but they also have a vastly different hormonal profile than the original Pill. A brief Google of the internet has nothing to say on the subject, so I can't back myself up here, but something's off. Gladwell adds footnotes to update several articles, but the blood clot issue -- as well as new findings connecting artificial hormones and cancer in female bodies -- goes unaddressed.
Several of these pieces felt too short; I'd turn the page and be surprised it was over, and if you've read Blink you're already familiar with the concept, and much of the research, behind "The New-Boy Network," but if you like Gladwell, you'll like this book.
Four stars. Gladwell has a real gift for setting a scene and getting across a lot of information in a way that doesn't make it feel like someone dumped an encyclopedia on your head.
eBook related content: This epub has a footnote to nowhere! Actually, it links to a different, unrelated footnote, but that was weird. A bigger problem is that almost every acronym in this book is rendered in italics for no good reason. And it's not consistent; if the acronym is near certain punctuation marks, it's not in italics. Obviously the formatting got borked somewhere.
September 11, 2011
I didn't buy this book because it is a collection of already published articles, nearly all of which I have read already. But I saw it at the library and decided to read it anyway. What a wonderfully fun experience.
There are quite a few criticism I could make of these articles. Gladwell is a storyteller and sometimes lets telling a good story take precedence over reality. In his case, this usually means making all of the pieces fit together just so, instead of revealing the messy way that the world doesn't always fit together right. I could go on, but the fact is: I really like reading these articles. Some of them are as fun and as fine as great short stories. And sometimes those pieces really do fit together exactly the way he implies.
I loved the opening piece on Ron Popeil, of Ronco informercial fame. An inventor and a pitchman; I enjoyed seeing his familiar patter through Gladwell's eyes. I liked reading about Nathan Taleb; I've read The Black Swan and, again, it was neat to see him through Gladwell's eyes. Likewise Cesar Milan and his dogs. His essay on culture and hair coloring products puts together a story that puts to shame all of those people trying to view the culture through one lens or another...I could go on about plagiarism, homelessness (and pollution), cancer detection (and terrorism) and so on.... But that's enough for me to remember why I liked this book so much.
There are quite a few criticism I could make of these articles. Gladwell is a storyteller and sometimes lets telling a good story take precedence over reality. In his case, this usually means making all of the pieces fit together just so, instead of revealing the messy way that the world doesn't always fit together right. I could go on, but the fact is: I really like reading these articles. Some of them are as fun and as fine as great short stories. And sometimes those pieces really do fit together exactly the way he implies.
I loved the opening piece on Ron Popeil, of Ronco informercial fame. An inventor and a pitchman; I enjoyed seeing his familiar patter through Gladwell's eyes. I liked reading about Nathan Taleb; I've read The Black Swan and, again, it was neat to see him through Gladwell's eyes. Likewise Cesar Milan and his dogs. His essay on culture and hair coloring products puts together a story that puts to shame all of those people trying to view the culture through one lens or another...I could go on about plagiarism, homelessness (and pollution), cancer detection (and terrorism) and so on.... But that's enough for me to remember why I liked this book so much.
March 3, 2010
I've got to hand it to Malcolm Gladwell; the man knows how to engage his reader. What the Dog Saw is a collection of articles Gladwell has written over the last ten years or so, each about 20-30 pages. Frankly, I think this is the perfect length for his writings, long enough to delve into the topic, but not so long that it feels he's making the same point over and over. The Time review called Gladwell "an omniscient, many-armed Hindu god of anecdotes," and that's actually what it feels like to read this book. A single article will connect two seemingly unrelated things in a way that makes you wonder why you never put them together before: NFL quarterbacks and kindergarten teachers; mammograms and military bombing missions; homelessness in Denver, aggressive cops in LA, and super-polluting cars. It's amazing.
As always, I don't think Gladwell's point is to force you to agree with him, it's to make you challenge your conventional view of the world. In one article, he argues that it might be easier to solve the homeless problem than to manage it, but that doing so goes against our moral sense of fairness. In another, he explains that traditional employment interviews don't work, and the ones that do work are highly unpopular because they don't follow our intuition about evaluating people. In yet another, he describes how the Challenger explosion or the meltdown at Three Mile Island might really be nobody's fault. Just thinking about these issues is enough to make you start second-guessing all sorts of conventional wisdom, and I think that's what makes Gladwell's writing so valuable. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what he comes out with next.
As always, I don't think Gladwell's point is to force you to agree with him, it's to make you challenge your conventional view of the world. In one article, he argues that it might be easier to solve the homeless problem than to manage it, but that doing so goes against our moral sense of fairness. In another, he explains that traditional employment interviews don't work, and the ones that do work are highly unpopular because they don't follow our intuition about evaluating people. In yet another, he describes how the Challenger explosion or the meltdown at Three Mile Island might really be nobody's fault. Just thinking about these issues is enough to make you start second-guessing all sorts of conventional wisdom, and I think that's what makes Gladwell's writing so valuable. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what he comes out with next.
April 3, 2017
I think I have a like/indifferent thing going with Malcolm Gladwell. I find so many of his insights truly fascinating, while others float by me with a big whiff of "annnnddddd sooooooo?????" Sometimes I just wish he'd hit me over the head a little harder with a summary of his point and maybe every so often a call-to-action with a suggestion of what to do with the knowledge he's just imparted. For me, "Outliers" is still my go-to recommendation by this author.
August 15, 2020
I've never had any interest in reading any of Gladwell's single-topic books. But this collection of magazine articles on a variety of topics was quite interesting. He can write well, and chooses interesting topics. Whether his conclusions are correct or not, I have no idea, but he is persuasive in most cases.
August 6, 2021
While dear Mr Gladwell can get way too flippant on a lot of stuff that had better be taken seriously, here goes nothing. I love the way his books take a bunch of really different stuff and entangle it to enterrain and educate (maybe not too well but I won't bitch too much about it).
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