drose's Full Review: Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point: How Little T...
If you visited New York City in the 1980s, you remember the squeegee guys. Your car would be stuck in traffic, waiting for the light to change, and a menacing character would approach your car, squeegee in one hand and sharpened screwdriver in the other, offering to "clean your windshield" for a dollar. Crime was rampant in the city, and squeegee guys were just a small-time manifestation of a bigger problem. Or were they?
When a new police commissioner was appointed, the first thing he did was crack down on the squeegee guys and other petty criminals who were degrading the quality of life. And an amazing thing happened: There was an astonishing drop in muggings, rapes, and other violent crime. It seems that the minor crimes were actually *creating* the climate in which major crimes could flourish, making criminals feel that no one was watching them, and driving law-abiding citizens indoors. The environment was at a "tipping point" where a relatively small effort by the police force on the squeegee guys had a huge effect.
Malcolm Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point," describes this phenomenon with examples from the worlds of fashion and children's television as well as crime. It's a fascinating concept, and he gives some convincing examples.
Unfortunately, the author starts to drift from the concept of a tipping point to the general idea of ideas that spread like epidemics. He goes on to try to come up with some basic principles that underlie these epidemics. As the book goes on, he gets farther and farther afield, drawing some rather unscientific conclusions about things like how to make cigarette smoking less attractive.
The book actually began as an article written for The New Yorker magazine. The magazine's editor asked Gladwell to expand the concept into a book. The article was great, and the concept is brilliant, but there isn't quite enough solid material for a book.
Despite these drawbacks, the "tipping point" concept is so interesting that it's worth reading the book.
Unabridged - The New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavi...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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