by Malcolm Gladwell
(5 / 5)

BLURB

Malcolm Gladwell, presenter of the Revisionist History show and number one best-selling writer of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and What The Dog Saw, provides a strong review of our relationships with outsiders–and why they often go incorrectly.

How didn a decade of Fidel Castro miss the CIA? Why did Neville Chamberlain believe Adolf Hitler could trust? Why are sexual assaults on university rising? Do television sitcoms educate us anything that is not accurate about how we connect to each other? 

Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian academic adventure, a difficult and contentious journey directly from the media through culture, science, and rumors. He reviews Bernie Madoff’s deceptions, Amanda Knox’s conviction, Sylvia Plath’s murder, Penn State University’s Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal, and Sandra Bland’s grave-casting dispute on our knowledge of these and other tales. Gladwell argues that something is very wrong with the tools and strategies that we use to make sense of people we don’t understand. And because we don’t understand how to speak with outsiders, we invite controversy and confusion in respects that have a deep impact on our life and our universe. Malcolm Gladwell has published a compelling guidebook for troubled times in his first novel since his top one best seller, David and Goliath.