Malcolm Gladwell returns to the ideas of his 2000 bestseller The Tipping Point, this time asking who engineers social epidemics rather than just how they spread. Through stories of a Los Angeles bank-robbery wave, the opioid crisis, Harvard's admissions quotas, and the making of the 1978 television miniseries Holocaust, he examines superspreaders, small-group tipping thresholds like the "magic third," and the moral responsibility of those who set contagions in motion. The book reframes social change as something that can be deliberately manufactured, for better or worse, rather than simply observed after the fact.
Books mentioned in Revenge of the Tipping Point (19)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: “The defining novel of the First World War was probably Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.”
The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication by William L. Benoit and Andrew C. Billings: “Data about The Big Bang Theory and other TV-finale viewing numbers are from the introduction to The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication by William L. [Benoit].”
The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel: “The history of Columbia's and Harvard's Jewish-admissions quotas and Abbott Lawrence Lowell comes from Jerome Karabel's The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), especially chapter 3.”
Contemporary Europe: A History by H. Stuart Hughes: “Stuart Hughes's Contemporary Europe: A History from 1965 (it was first printed in 1961 by Prentice-Hall Inc.), you can find these passages listed under "Jews," as well as the mentions of Arnold Schoenberg.”
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier: “Portenoy's quote about pain treatment being "a little science, a lot of intuition, and a lot of art" is on page 22 of Barry Meier's Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic (Random House, 2018).”
The Year of Dangerous Days by Nicholas Griffin: “But perhaps the most persuasive explanation is what might be termed "The 1980 Theory." It comes from a fascinating book called The Year of Dangerous Days by Nicholas Griffin.”
Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World by William Rehder and Gordon Dillow: “The Yankee Bandit's six-bank robbery spree is detailed in Chapter 2 ("Everybody Likes Eddie") of William Rehder and Gordon Dillow's Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World (W.[W. Norton]).”
Tracking Medicine: A Researcher's Quest to Understand Health Care by John Wennberg: “It was later analyzed in Wennberg's 2010 book, Tracking Medicine: A Researcher's Quest to Understand Health Care, which is where the chart comparing the cities in Chapter 1 is from.”
The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter: “The anecdote about Lorne Michaels's speech to Segelstein after the latter threatened to quit is on page 513 of Bill Carter's The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy (Viking, Penguin Random House, 2011).”
White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin Kruse: “I found the figures for the change in the white population of Atlanta in the 1960s and 1970s (as well as the nickname THE CITY TOO BUSY TO HATE) on page 5 of Kevin Kruse's White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2005).”
Tears of the Cheetah: And Other Tales from the Genetic Frontier by Stephen J. O'Brien: “[St.] Martin's Griffin, 2005), especially chapter 2 ("Tears of the Cheetah") and chapter 4 ("A Run for Its Life-The Florida Panther") -- verified via outside research that this is O'Brien's book given the matching publisher/imprint and Florida-panther genetics subject; the book's own title was cut off in the extracted context.”
Up the Tube: Prime-Time TV and the Silverman Years by Sally Bedell: “The story about Klein picking Segelstein up for work is on page 196 of Sally Bedell's biography of Fred Silverman, Up the Tube: Prime-Time TV and the Silverman Years (Viking, Penguin Random House, 1981).”
The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick: “Peter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life (Houghton Mifflin, 1991) is quoted several times throughout this chapter.”
Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women's Movement Since 1970 by Bonnie J. Dow: “Bonnie Dow's analysis of the representation of women and feminism on TV programs such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis, Maude, Rhoda, and others comes from her book Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women's Movement Since 1970 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).”
Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber by Willie Sutton and Edward Linn: “You can read about Willie Sutton's "visit" to the Manufacturers Trust Company branch in Queens, as well as other details about his life, in his 2004 memoir, cowritten with Edward Linn, Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber, especially pages 1-11.”