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5.5k reviews for:
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Malcolm Gladwell
3.83 AVERAGE
5.5k reviews for:
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Malcolm Gladwell
3.83 AVERAGE
Let’s just begin by saying how Talking to Strangers is an eye-opening book for me.
The author, Malcolm Gladwell, talks about series of “remarkable” incidents, that took place anywhere around the world in past years. Why they are remarkable? Because reading details of each story or incident will make you realize that you know nothing about people who you might pass by in a mall, bus station, or a coffee shop that people are not who you think they are- the reader will understand about Default to Truth theory and Transparency and everything it has to do with our misconception of Strangers.
Gladwell starts off with the story of Sandra Bland, a young African- American lady who got stopped by a police officer for not indicating when moving from one lane to another. Sandra, who is no getting agitated lit up a cigarette and that was the turning point for the police officer behavior. Sandra hanged herself in the jail cell she was locked in. Gladwell discusses what went wrong in that encounter, the misunderstanding that led to a need less death of a young person.
He will also end his book the way it started, what happened between Sandra and the officer. In between, the author touches upon controversial cases of rape, child molestation, WWII, the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernie Madoff, and Terrorism as well.
It was interesting to learn about the “Coupling” theory. It basically means that behaviors are linked to specific circumstances and conditions. As the author will explain that most crimes are linked and “coupled” with few specific areas/locations.
Enjoyed the book and it happened to be that I agree with most discussion points Gladwell mentioned in his book. The flow of information is smoothly moving from one subject to another and how all the points are linked together to support the theories mentioned in the book.
The author, Malcolm Gladwell, talks about series of “remarkable” incidents, that took place anywhere around the world in past years. Why they are remarkable? Because reading details of each story or incident will make you realize that you know nothing about people who you might pass by in a mall, bus station, or a coffee shop that people are not who you think they are- the reader will understand about Default to Truth theory and Transparency and everything it has to do with our misconception of Strangers.
Gladwell starts off with the story of Sandra Bland, a young African- American lady who got stopped by a police officer for not indicating when moving from one lane to another. Sandra, who is no getting agitated lit up a cigarette and that was the turning point for the police officer behavior. Sandra hanged herself in the jail cell she was locked in. Gladwell discusses what went wrong in that encounter, the misunderstanding that led to a need less death of a young person.
He will also end his book the way it started, what happened between Sandra and the officer. In between, the author touches upon controversial cases of rape, child molestation, WWII, the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernie Madoff, and Terrorism as well.
It was interesting to learn about the “Coupling” theory. It basically means that behaviors are linked to specific circumstances and conditions. As the author will explain that most crimes are linked and “coupled” with few specific areas/locations.
Enjoyed the book and it happened to be that I agree with most discussion points Gladwell mentioned in his book. The flow of information is smoothly moving from one subject to another and how all the points are linked together to support the theories mentioned in the book.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
This is the second book by Malcolm Caldwell that I've read, the first being Outliers. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the other, and I don't feel as convinced by the arguments in this book as I did in the other. The three central ideas explored in this book (and their attendant arguments) are default to truth (which is a good thing), transparency (which is a myth), and coupling (which shapes strangers' behavior and thus should influence how we see them).
There were a handful of gems in this book which made the book worth reading, including the coupled nature of suicide, the reality of truth-default, and especially the Kansas City policing reform that spiraled out of control as it spread throughout the nation. When it comes to that third point especially, I think attempts to reform policing today could really benefit from going back and reimplementing the Kansas City technique with the crucial piece of understanding the link between crime and place.
That said, a lot of the book either did not convince me or felt very obvious and not worth reading about. The argument that truth-default should be wholeheartedly embraced, for instance, I didn't buy. He argues that we need truth default to function as a society, which I agree with, but then treats it as a binary, saying that we should just be on truth-default mode all the time and accept the losses that come with it. Never mind that abandoning truth default is what caught Madoff and is what could have prevented hundreds of cases of sexual abuse. The abandoning of truth default by police officers seems to me to be an extreme, which should be avoided. (Suspecting someone of having illegal guns or drugs solely because it's possible they could is ridiculous.) But I ultikately came away from this book seeing truth default as more harmful than helpful. Absolute, universal doubt is harmful. Some doubt can be helpful.
As for what I found to be obvious, the entire point of transparency being a myth is something I already believed. Given his number of real-life examples to the contrary (such as Amanda Knox), I may be in the minority here, but just because someone looks nervous or weird, I do not immediately suspect them of hiding some nefarious plot. I like to entertain multiple possibilities, including what I suspect is the most common one, "Maybe they're just having an off day." So I don't feel like I learned anything new there.
In the end, Gladwell is a great writer, and there were several interesting things I did learn, which made this book worth reading, but large amounts of it were just unconvincing or very obvious to me.
Quotes:
"You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them."
There were a handful of gems in this book which made the book worth reading, including the coupled nature of suicide, the reality of truth-default, and especially the Kansas City policing reform that spiraled out of control as it spread throughout the nation. When it comes to that third point especially, I think attempts to reform policing today could really benefit from going back and reimplementing the Kansas City technique with the crucial piece of understanding the link between crime and place.
That said, a lot of the book either did not convince me or felt very obvious and not worth reading about. The argument that truth-default should be wholeheartedly embraced, for instance, I didn't buy. He argues that we need truth default to function as a society, which I agree with, but then treats it as a binary, saying that we should just be on truth-default mode all the time and accept the losses that come with it. Never mind that abandoning truth default is what caught Madoff and is what could have prevented hundreds of cases of sexual abuse. The abandoning of truth default by police officers seems to me to be an extreme, which should be avoided. (Suspecting someone of having illegal guns or drugs solely because it's possible they could is ridiculous.) But I ultikately came away from this book seeing truth default as more harmful than helpful. Absolute, universal doubt is harmful. Some doubt can be helpful.
As for what I found to be obvious, the entire point of transparency being a myth is something I already believed. Given his number of real-life examples to the contrary (such as Amanda Knox), I may be in the minority here, but just because someone looks nervous or weird, I do not immediately suspect them of hiding some nefarious plot. I like to entertain multiple possibilities, including what I suspect is the most common one, "Maybe they're just having an off day." So I don't feel like I learned anything new there.
In the end, Gladwell is a great writer, and there were several interesting things I did learn, which made this book worth reading, but large amounts of it were just unconvincing or very obvious to me.
Quotes:
"You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them."
I don't know how I should rate or review this book. I've enjoyed all of Malcolm Gladwell's other books, but I did not agree with many of Gladwell's conclusions, and felt like he over simplified too much. ***Trigger warning, he discusses several well known sexual assault cases in detail. I'm not mentioning them in my review, but I had no idea he would dissect them in such detail, so wanted to warn others before they read this book.
As always, Gladwell made me think about people and things in a different way than before. I agree that we tend to default to believing what someone is telling us, even when there's evidence to the contrary. And how we tend to think we're good at telling when someone is lying even if we aren't that good at it. I felt like his conclusions around the different cases he brought up were letting people off the hook.
I don't plan to read this again, but I would consider recommending it to others with some caveats.
As always, Gladwell made me think about people and things in a different way than before. I agree that we tend to default to believing what someone is telling us, even when there's evidence to the contrary. And how we tend to think we're good at telling when someone is lying even if we aren't that good at it. I felt like his conclusions around the different cases he brought up were letting people off the hook.
I don't plan to read this again, but I would consider recommending it to others with some caveats.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
A worthwhile incremental argument from which I got much food for thought. RIP Sandra Bland.
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced