David and Goliath David and Goliath

David and Goliath

Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

    • 3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
    • $11.99
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

Explore the power of the underdog in Malcolm Gladwell's dazzling examination of success, motivation, and the role of adversity in shaping our lives, from the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia.

Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won.

Or should he have?

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwellchallenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.

In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog SawDavid and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

GENRE
Health, Mind & Body
RELEASED
2013
October 1
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
320
Pages
PUBLISHER
Little, Brown and Company
SELLER
Hachette Digital, Inc.
SIZE
1.9
MB

Customer Reviews

JM Miller ,

Interesting stories . . .

. . . but superficial analysis.

The D & G story sold me the book, and Gladwell's account of the Birmingham civil rights drive is eye-opening, but his banging-on about "inverted-U" relationships overlooks the fact that they explain nothing, that they're just a quasi-mathematical way to say "too much of a good thing" may not be so good.

What are the mechanisms that produce inverted-U relationships? Where do you see them and where not? The reasons why excessive rewards reduce motivation, and heavy-handed punishments fail to change behavior have been very we'll studied (and are very interesting).

3:15DeltaWed ,

Readable, but analysis and conclusions dubious

As always Gladwell tells entertaining stories, but at least in this book his analysis and the conclusions reached seem to be square pegs pounded into round holes. Everything after David and Goliath goes downhill.

ian ordenes ,

Amazing book!

In David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell, I like how he has different sources of reliability so that it shows his readers how the opinions of people in it are credible. I thought that it helped that he included sports references because it helped me to better understand his main ideas and concepts. I found his stories very interesting and those examples gave me the ability to understand what he was saying and what he meant.However I feel like he tells a lot of stories and uses them to carry across his points rather than arguing. On the other hand this book was the perfect length and didn't discourage me at all.

More Books by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers Outliers
2008
The Tipping Point The Tipping Point
2006
Blink Blink
2007
Talking to Strangers Talking to Strangers
2019
What the Dog Saw What the Dog Saw
2009
The Bomber Mafia The Bomber Mafia
2021

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