Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide
Malcolm Gladwell excels at pinpointing a social phenomenon, be
it cultural epidemics (The Tipping Point) or snap judgements (Blink); putting forth his
thesis; and illustrating his proof through a series of short, engaging,
self-encapsulated histories. In Outliers, he examines the phenomenon of
high achievement, fantasic stories of success often attributed to the tenacity,
hard work, and innate individual talent. Gladwell doesn't discount the
necessity of innate ability, and he points to hard work as a crucial factor for
success in any endeavor. But he finds in these success stories that factors
such as timing, circumstance, and cultural heritage play an oft-overlooked yet
critical role. Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell's ode to these unsung heros.
In the first part of the book, Gladwell profiles high achievers and the
historical conditions surrounding their successes, illustrating anecdotally how
they prove what Gladwell calls the 10,000 Hour Rule, that mastery at anything -
music, programming, sports, chess - is dependent upon 10,000 hours of practice,
roughly three hours a day over the course of ten years.. In his illustrations,
Gladwell shows how these individuals were provided with unique opportunities to
log these critical practice hours.
In 1968, when Bill Gates was 13 years old, his school, Lakeside Academy
in Seattle, Washington, acquired a computer, a terminal on which Gates could
program non-stop for the next few years, a once in a lifetime opportunity to
practice something that would have unforseen value. At the age of 16, Gates
learned that a mainframe computer was available for free in the middle of the
night at the nearby University of Washington. Unbeknown to his parents, the
young Gates snuck out each night to write code between 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Good
fortune played an critical role in Bill Gates' success by allowing him
significant programming practice time that very few others his age had during a
critical juncture in computer history.
In Part II of Outliers, Gladwell shifts his focus from
circumstantial good fortune and serendipitous timing to the cultural legacies
we inherit from our forbears. Key among the illustrations in this section is
that of agrarian Chinese from Southern China, who for thousands of years
engineered, built, and toiled in rice paddies. The work is famously grueling as
well as surprisingly complex, and Gladwell contrasts Chinese commitment in this
rigor to the lassitude of peasant farmers in Europe, pointing to the
differences in the different systems that evolved around the two forms of work.
Through a string of narrative that also references studies of mathematical
learning, Gladwell leads us deftly to very plausible explanations for the truth
inherent in cultural stereotypes about Asians in academia.
Malcolm Gladwell is a gifted story-teller, and his ability to present his ideas
within compelling narrative form is half of what makes his work so engaging and
popular. The other half of course is his ability to ask questions, synthesize
ideas, and make connections where others fail to see them, or where those who
do lack the narrative ability to serve them up irresistibly as Gladwell is
known to do.
http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/socialsciences/fr/outliers.htm
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