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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
- History and case tidbits (how this book earned .25 stars)
- -100000000 stars for minimizing the crimes of rapists, making sweeping generalizations, victim blaming, and oversimplifying sexual assault issues
- General review: Man with ideas about the true nature of human beings uses anecdotal evidence to justify and package his opinions as facts with a lack of reflection on his own bias and a lack of exploration into alternate explanations for the patterns discussed, explanations that are more well documented and serve more constructively into a greater personal and social model of the human mind.
Once again I leave with the impression that Malcolm Gladwell has a superiority complex. This book is structured around unexamined intuitions backed with interesting historical cases, where the line between personal bias/opinion and fact is not drawn and even distorted to the authors benefit. I would not use this book to guide my thinking or life. I would not recommend this to anyone.
Not at all what I expected, but gave me a lot to think about
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Engaging book that made me think about my thoughts and notions of strangers and how I and others interact.
some interesting research, kind of confusing, but some take-aways i.e. humans tend to default to believing what people say, different cultures interpret facial expressions differently, police are taught to act as though people are lying and hiding something
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicide, Police brutality
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
“If you are blind to the ideas that underly our mistakes with strangers and to the institutions and practices that we construct around those ideas, then all you are left with is the personal.”
This was a great read! Gladwell delves into the psychology of understanding others in an eye-opening way. If everyone read this book, maybe we could all “default to truth” and understand one another more before jumping to false conclusions. Highly recommend the audiobook - it’s different than any audiobook I’ve ever listened to!
This was a great read! Gladwell delves into the psychology of understanding others in an eye-opening way. If everyone read this book, maybe we could all “default to truth” and understand one another more before jumping to false conclusions. Highly recommend the audiobook - it’s different than any audiobook I’ve ever listened to!
informative
medium-paced
More like 3.5. I love Revisionist History and how Malcolm Gladwell tells stories, so I knew I wanted to do the audio book. I could have looked at the description more ahead of time to know the topics would be what they were. I was expecting more of a lighter tone and every day talking to stranger insights… although that wouldn’t have been very typical of him anyways. It started good conversations with my partner and I about truth bias, reading others, and more that were interesting. 3.5 stars for challenging me to see scenarios in new light and start interesting conversations, but I was never hooked.