David and Goliath

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell

Length: 7 hrs

Publisher's summary

David and Goliath is the dazzling and provocative new book from Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw.

Why do underdogs succeed so much more than we expect? How do the weak outsmart the strong? In David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell takes us on a scintillating and surprising journey through the hidden dynamics that shape the balance of power between the small and the mighty. From the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Vietnam, through the tactics of civil rights leaders and the problem of privilege, Gladwell demonstrates how we misunderstand the true meaning of advantage and disadvantage.

When does a traumatic childhood work in someone's favour? How can a disability leave someone better off? And do you really want your child to go to the best school he or she can get into? David and Goliath draws on the stories of remarkable underdogs, history, science, psychology and on Malcolm Gladwell's unparalleled ability to make the connections others miss. It's a brilliant, illuminating book that overturns conventional thinking about power and advantage.

Author, journalist, cultural commentator, and intellectual adventurer, Malcolm Gladwell was born in 1963 in England to a Jamaican mother and an English mathematician father. He grew up in Canada and graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto in 1984. From 1987 to 1996, he was a reporter for The Washington Post, first as a science writer and then as New York City bureau chief. Since 1996, he has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

His curiosity and breadth of interests are shown in New Yorker articles ranging over a wide array of subjects including early childhood development and the flu, not to mention hair dye, shopping and what it takes to be cool. His first book, The Tipping Point, captured the world's attention with its theory that a curiously small change can have unforeseen effects, and the phrase has become part of our language, used by writers, politicians and business people everywhere to describe cultural trends and strange phenomena. His other international best-selling books are Blink, which explores how a snap judgment can be far more effective than a cautious decision, and What the Dog Saw, a collection of his most provocative and entertaining New Yorker pieces.

©2013 Malcolm Gladwell (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"A global phenomenon... there is, it seems, no subject over which he cannot scatter some magic dust." ( Observer)

An enjoyable listen

Malcolm Gladwell takes an interesting premise and turns into a really eye-opening book through his examples and case studies. He makes you put a different lens on things and I always end up getting a good take-home from his books.

Great book and enjoyed listening to it

He book has a relatively simple message woven into many stories. It was great to listen to.

Wonderful!

Another brilliant, insightful journey courtesy of the phenomenal Malcolm Gladwell.

I highly recommend this book...

Gladwell is a one trick pony.

Gladwell's The Tipping Point was an interesting book, but unfortunately ever since then Gladwell seems intent on finding a new way back to the money tree of the New York Bestsellers List by plucking a random talking point from somewhere, anywhere, and making a book out of it.
David vs Goliath starts with an opening premise which literally and seriously takes its cues from a fictional tale in the Bible and then hacks away and away repeating itself and trying to justify the same inane argument over and over again whether applying it to little girl's basketball teams or major corporations.
Its all complete hokum dressed up as sagely "hip and modern" wisdom and its a contender for the silliest book I've ever read.

Good-ish, but meandering, and then abruptly ends

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

A nice listen, which is not too dissimilar to Outliers, but abruptly ends leaving you wondering - 'wait, what was the point again'?

If you’ve listened to books by Malcolm Gladwell before, how does this one compare?

Ok, but Outliers had more punch.

Any additional comments?

Worth a download if you're a fan of Gladwell, just not a hugely new idea from him.

Just couldnt perservere with it...

I wanted to really love this book, but the focus on sports related examples at the beginning just made me completely detatch. I haven't got a clue about basketball and so my attention span drifted and don't think i'll be returning to it. Shame as thought it would be just my kind of thing.

first part is great. later part struggled to close

first part is great . later part - tough to comprehend !! . ... . ...

Gladwell loses his way, and I my respect for him

Malcolm Gladwell has been believing his own press for way too long. When he started out with The Tipping Point in 2000, he had a knack for making interesting observations that went against the grain of common knowledge. Each thesis he presented was carefully thought out and argued, and encouraged one to re-evaluate the subject at hand instead of proclaiming definitively that his was the one and only version of the truth.

With the passage of time he has become bolder. Each of his subsequent books have seemed more sure of itself than the last, as his arguments for his "findings" have grown thinner and thinner. Even before the arrival of David & Goliath, he was already fond making sweeping generalizations that would make a politician blush, all the while having little but his own opinions backing up those statements.

With David & Goliath, Gladwell seems to have almost given up not only on presenting properly conceived theses, but has abandoned even trying to formulate coherent conclusions. His anecdotes meander pointlessly for ages before concluding abruptly, not coming to any conclusions and not providing the listener with sufficient information to draw their own.

Worst of all, judgement has crept into his analyses. No longer does he objectively look at issues and how people perceive them, but tinges all his arguments with his own point of view. This is brought home in a bizarre fashion in the chapter on the three strikes law. Not only is this well-trodden ground - everything he talks about has been common knowledge almost since the law's inception - but he seems to have no aim but to rip apart the poor father who instigated the law with only the best of intentions. It's nothing but an exercise in character assassination, and his unbelievable conclusion seems to be only that the father should have "gotten over" his daughter's brutal murder instead of trying to make the world a better, safer place. The merits of the law's logic notwithstanding, it was a breathtakingly cringe-worthy experience hearing Gladwell so heartlessly stomp on this man's grief and how he coped with it. His method of coping was, by the way, nothing but positive and inspirational.

The book as a whole reads more like a drunken man in a bar shouting "now let me tell you something" rather than a well-conceived series of arguments about interesting topics.

Gladwell has become an almost unrecognizable parody of himself, and this will be the last book of his I purchase.

Gladwell not at his best

It seems that the author has tried exceedingly hard to string together a bunch of interesting stories but the outcomes are often not compelling and the theme of the book gets completely lost in the narrative. A marked departure from the clinical accuracy and easily identifiable threads from his previous books. A bit disappointing but not altogether awful.

Short.. & trying too hard!

Outliers was a book that quite literally changed my 'outlook' towards life & since then I've read all/most of Gladwell's works.. sadly though, with David & Goliath, the author seems to be trying too hard to fit the story/narrative to a feeble plot.. I will still continue to be an ardent fan of his work and would certainly like to see something great come from Malcolm :)