|
Outliers: The Story of Success |  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
Buy Used: $9.49
as of 9/3/2010 05:47 CDT details
You Save: $18.50 (66%)
Seller: internationalbooks
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 20
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 309
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0316017922
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
EAN: 9780316017923
ASIN: 0316017922
Publication Date: November 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780316017923 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."
Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
Product Description
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Interesting Read About Factors Contributing To Success September 1, 2010
Peter Hupalo (MN United States)
"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell is an extremely well-written, insightful, and fascinating evaluation of what external factors in a person's life lead to success or failure. The book also examines the effects culture has on people and how those effects influence peoples' lives.
Gladwell writes: "The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with."
Gladwell writes about the microcomputer revolution and tells us most successful entrepreneurs during that revolution were born in the mid-1950s. This made them just old enough to take advantage of the microcomputer revolution that began in the mid-1970s.
Gladwell concludes: "I don't mean to suggest, of course, that every software tycoon in Silicon Valley was born in 1955. Some weren't .... But there are very clearly patterns here, and what's striking is how little we seem to want to acknowledge them. We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. ... Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up."
Not only is the year of birth important, but, surprisingly, the month of birth is sometimes crucial too. In his outstanding chapter, "The Matthew Effect," Gladwell examines the months of birth of star athletes and shows that when junior sports have eligibility cut-off dates, the effects of those cut-off date propagates all the way up to the professional level of play.
For example, in Canada, most professional hockey players are born in January. The next most popular birth months are February and March. Forty percent of professional Canadian hockey players are born in these months. Thirty percent are born in the next three months of April to June, and only 20 percent are born between October and December. Why is this?
Gladwell explains: "It's simply that in Canada the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1. A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn't turn ten until the end of the year--and, at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity."
The implications of this sort of "self-fulfilling prophecy" are important to parents. Gladwell says parents often contemplate holding children who are born at the end of the calendar year back from kindergarten until they are a bit more mature. Gladwell says many parents probably decide to enroll the kids anyway because they assume any disadvantage the child suffers will go away with time. "But it doesn't. It's just like hockey. The small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists. It locks children into patterns of achievement and underachievement, encouragement and discouragement, that stretch on and on for years[,]" concludes Gladwell.
Gladwell writes about the academic and career advantages children born to richer parents have over children born to less affluent parents. Richer parents and financially poor parents have markedly different parenting styles. Richer parents tend to cultivate their kids, shuttle them between different activities, encourage them to interact with the adult world, and advocate strongly for them. Gladwell says poorer parents often believe children will just grow up and develop on their own. They also view the child's world as relatively inconsequential and separate from their adult world. Impoverished parents are often intimidated by authority, so they don't seek special privileges for their children. Children from more affluent homes learn social skills that help them succeed in life. On the downside, children from more affluent homes are often more self-centered and, literally, spoiled.
What about the role of public or private education in determining how well children do? Gladwell addresses this in detail in a well-woven chapter titled "Marita's Bargain." He tells us the story of a young girl named Marita who attends an intensive school in the Bronx called KIPP Academy. The students put in massive amounts of time, and they do exceptionally well, especially in math. It reminded me of the film "Sand and Deliver." Come to school early, stay late, come in on Saturday, and work through the summer. Yep, that'll do it.
While many politicians talk about the need to improve schools in impoverished areas, Gladwell tells us the achievement gap between poorer and richer students actually occurs during summer vacation, when poorer students lose ground academically. Gladwell concludes: "Virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of the differences in the way privileged kids learn while they are not in school. ... For its poorest students, America doesn't have a school problem. It has a summer vacation problem..." It becomes clear the majority of American students would benefit from much shorter summer vacations.
To be good in math requires effort. And, the cultures of many countries encourages students to work hard and instills the belief that if they work hard, they will learn. All students are expected to succeed. In America, by contrast, there is more of a false belief that talent in math is innate. Gladwell shows us that cultural differences can affect learning. Drawing upon the book "The Number Sense" by Stanislas Dehaene, we learn that Asians may have a built-in cultural advantage in learning math. In particular, the Chinese have shorter words for numbers, which allows them to remember more numbers.
For example, Gladwell tells us that only about half of Americans can remember the sequence of 4,8,5,3,9,7,6 after 20 seconds of study. Yet, nearly all Chinese can remember the sequence, because the Chinese language allows all those numbers to be said in a two-second period.
I highly recommend "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is very well written and packed with insight.
Malcom Gladwell does it again August 28, 2010
A. Samtani (DKI Jakarta)
Outliers is a fantastic read. If Gladwell started out this book with the intention of changing one's perspective on how success is achieved, he has without a doubt succeeded.
He breaks down success with the 10,000 hour rule and the legacy of culture, all of which make perfect sense. If you have not realized yet, Gladwell has the uncanny ability to point out things that we overlook. He does it flawlessly here with stories of successful software billionaires, lawyers and doctors.
An interesting bit in this book is as personal as it gets, Gladwell's breakdown of his mother as an outlier. A set of perfectly timed events centuries ago that result in her ending up in Canada.
The word Interesting does not do justice to this book. I highly recommend it.
Intriguing book August 27, 2010
Rami Shultz
I was very intrigued by the first half of the book. Great ideas regarding the influence birthday cutoffs have on our future development path. However, the second half seemed to wander and I didn't feel there was a connection to the concepts presented in the first half.
I would recommend this book, but it didn't quite live up to the hype for me.
Rami
must read, refreshing perspective.... August 27, 2010
Hot hands (Wisconsin)
I loved this book...it's an easy read, like an interesting, but long, magazine article...which take a different look at who reaches great levels of success and why...conects the dots in ways I have suspected, but have never read statistics on. Highly recommend.
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
| |
