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brennanpeterson 's review for:
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
by Malcolm Gladwell
I very much enjoyed this book. To me, Malcolm Gladwell is a unique story teller - someone who contextualizes the intimate portraits of the people he profiles within the social, historical, and political circumstances in which they lived. The premise of this book is that what we often times see as our strengths can actually be a disadvantage, and what we oftentimes see as a disadvantage, can actually be a strength.
I particularly enjoyed his analysis of the impact of small classroom size on learning, how dyslexia might be a "desirable disadvantage," how Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders created social change through their marginalized positions, and how the bombing of England by Germany in World War II produced a resilient population through the theory of "remote misses." But the "big pond" theory was tremendous and worth the read in and of itself. In essence, he argues that for some, being a big fish in a small pond can be a tremendous advantage, while we often think the reverse is true - particularly in higher education. The discussion of the Salon in France and the parallels to Ivy League undergraduate education in the US today were compelling.
I particularly enjoyed his analysis of the impact of small classroom size on learning, how dyslexia might be a "desirable disadvantage," how Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders created social change through their marginalized positions, and how the bombing of England by Germany in World War II produced a resilient population through the theory of "remote misses." But the "big pond" theory was tremendous and worth the read in and of itself. In essence, he argues that for some, being a big fish in a small pond can be a tremendous advantage, while we often think the reverse is true - particularly in higher education. The discussion of the Salon in France and the parallels to Ivy League undergraduate education in the US today were compelling.