Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering

Written by Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell

Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with “curiosity and humor” in this New York Times bestseller that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light (Shannon Carlin). ​

Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.
 
Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Oct 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781668643334

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, David and Goliath, Talking to Strangers, and The Bomber Mafia. He is also the cofounder of Pushkin Industries, an audio-​content company that produces Revisionist History, among other podcasts and audiobooks. He was born in England and raised in Canada, and lives outside New York with his family and a cat named Biggie Smalls. His latest book is Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering.

Reviews for Revenge of the Tipping Point

[Sarah Scussel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Always a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, this book stands up with the others, but it’s not my favorite. He always has a way of telling simple and engaging stories that connect beautifully together. This book had compelling stories as always, but the connections weren’t as clear by the end of it. Really relevant stories for our world today, though — still worth the read!

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What's interesting about this book (apart from the fascinating facts of situations that we all think we understand) is that Mr Gladwell points to the idea of responsibility in the realm of social epidemics. They don't just happen out of thin air and the actions of someone with particular power have to be considered carefully. Made me think.

[stevesbookstuff · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

TL/DR: If you are a fan of Gladwell’s this book is worth a read, otherwise it’s a pass. The stories here just don’t gel together into a satisfying whole — unlike his prior books this one left me with a shrug rather than the feeling of being satisfyingly enlightened.

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Is it me, or is it Malcolm? I’ve read almost every book Malcolm Gladwell has put out. I’ve enjoyed being led down the interesting path he always takes through stories that flesh out the hypothesis that is the reason for each of his books. His conversational writing style and ability to weave disparate narratives into a satisfying whole are hallmarks of his work. That second trait is not as much on display in this book, so perhaps that’s why this one left me with a shrug rather than a feeling of having been satisfyingly enlightened, as his prior books have. I’m leaning toward the notion that it’s not me, it’s Malcolm.

It might also be a sign of the times we are living in. These are serious times for both the US and the world. The world’s leading democracy is in crisis, daily ceding it’s leadership role in the world while, with oligarchy already at hand, seemingly descending further each day into autocracy. Gladwell’s conversational style and light touch “aha” moments seem out of sync with the times.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty-five years since Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, was published. The book was inspired by Gladwell’s fascination with the sudden drop in crime in New York City that occurred in the 1990s. It was a book-long discourse on what he calls social epidemics. The book included a chapter on crime and an exposition on the “broken windows” theory of policing (crack down hard on the little crimes and the bigger crimes will be reined in). “Broken windows”, accompanied by stop and frisk policing, were being put forward at the time to explain why New York’s crime rate, spiraling out of control for years, had suddenly dropped.

The Tipping Point looked at all kinds of phenomena from suicide rates to crime rates to how best sellers become best sellers, all through the lens of epidemiology. Was crime an epidemic? Did New York City’s approach — “stop and frisk” policing — act as an inoculant to the city’s epidemic of crime? Gladwell said yes.

The book was an instant best-seller and propelled Gladwell to years of celebrity and celebrity’s evil twin - disdain. Some see him as a big-picture thinker capable of putting insights into relatable contexts and understandable language, opening these ideas up for the rest of us. Some see him as Captain Obvious. I’ve been more of the latter than the former.

In between that book and this latest one, Gladwell has gone on to pen a number of very successful nonfiction books. And the world at large has changed a lot. For one thing we’ve all lived through the COVID epidemic, and so we’ve become a little more knowledgeable about epidemiology than we might like.

For another thing, stop and frisk and the broken windows theory of policing have fallen out of favor, as studies have shown little correlation between those techniques and crime rates. It’s that point in particular that has caused people in the intervening years to question Gladwell’s whole approach in writing The Tipping Point.

So, it’s not surprising that, when the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Tipping Point came around that Gladwell decided rather than issue a revised version, he would revisit the whole notion of social epidemics with a completely new book. Thus was born Revenge of the Tipping Point.

The big picture idea of this book is that, yes social epidemics do exist, and people who understand that are in a position to manipulate them. Frustratingly, he’s not talking about two of today’s hottest topics that would seem to fit into the overall idea of the book. He’s not talking about propaganda - the manipulation of the press to influence the spread of ideas. And social media — seemingly designed to spread social epidemics (they’re called “memes”) —doesn’t come up at all in this book.

He is talking about less obvious manipulations of human behavior. The book bounces from stories about TV show Will and Grace and its purported influence on the acceptance of gay marriage, to COVID — an actual epidemic — and how the spread of the COVID virus didn’t fit into easily understandable trajectories, to why Harvard has a women’s rugby team.

The stories are all interesting in and off themselves, and I do think I tore through this book at the same fast pace I’ve read his prior books. But do those stories add up to a cohesive whole that offers some fresh insight applicable to our times, as have his previous books? I have to say, at least for me, they did not.

[booklover1801 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Revenge of the Tipping Point” is an odd follow-up to his first book, “The Tipping Point,” a bestseller that became a sensation twenty-five years ago. This time, instead of presenting a coherent update on the origin and nature of epidemics, the author peppers us with anecdotes, but fails to convincingly connect the dots between the stories he tells.

Some of the questions that Gladwell raises are why opioid addiction became a crisis that has taken an enormous number of American lives; how an executive retreat led to a Covid crisis in Boston; what occurred in an elite school that led to a rash of teen suicides; and why administrators at Harvard decided to form a female rugby team.

In "Revenge of the Tipping Point," we encounter such terms as overstories, the magic third, small area variation, and group proportions, but Gladwell does not persuasively explain how these and other concepts bring us from Point A to Point B. Therefore, we are left with a work of non-fiction that initially piques our curiosity, but does not fulfill its initial promise—to clarify how we can use social engineering to make our world healthier, happier, and more equitable.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

nonfiction - sociology/science, downsides of the tipping point - spread of COVID, dangers of monoculture, why the opioid epidemic was infinitely worse in the southern states, crooked businesses in Miami, and more.

I almost read this in one sitting--utterly fascinating, compelling, and at the same time horrifying/depressing (though I'm sure it will end on a hopeful note).

[zoharlaor · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fascinating book; I enjoyed Mr. Gladwell’s story-telling and weaving of different narratives to make a coherent point. I actually thought that it was somewhat complementary to Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus, which also talks about the power of stories we tell ourselves.

One of the reasons Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is so enjoyable is because it speaks to a large audience, getting people who know nothing about a subject to find it fascinating. As a result, however, the stories that are brought forth are rebranded, or retold, of known ideas.

The book deserves a much closer look and a dose of critical thinking. Often time there’s a literary sleight of hand to hedge the narrative, which sounds authoritative otherwise. That doesn’t take away from the point though, even though I found some of the cases more convincing than others.

I am a firm believer in what the book is attempting to show, how little things can make a huge difference, purposefully or not. I do think though that Mr. Gladwell’s examples are somewhat outdated as the world has moved at a tremendous pace.

While the book offers no solutions, it is thought-provoking but is too vanilla. It’s as if the author tried to avoid complexity and the hard, and often ugly, truths despite his independent status.

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Insights onto social epidemiology. Gladwell looks at many recent social phenomena. OxyContin, same sex marriage, and racial housing are all given thought provoking reviews. He provides interesting insights into human nature.

[katyefk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It started out a bit slow with multiple discussion and tracks. But by the end, all the loose threads came together in an amazing way. Very worth reading.