Book Review: Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell; Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering

Genre: Non-Fiction

Medium Consumed: Audiobook

Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: Through a series of intriguing storylines, Gladwell takes the reader through his perspective on the rise of social engineering. This book is a follow up to the Tipping Point, a novel Gladwell released 25 years ago. In this he revisits the last novel with an emphasis on contagion in the modern-day world and touches on things like the opioid crisis and Covid-19.

My take: I want to preface this review by saying I found this book fascinating, although it was not a book that I picked up myself. This book was a choice for my monthly book club, and a non-fiction read was a first for our group. Each month our group of five rotates who chooses a book and this month the choice was a new release that was all abuzz.  I’ve read one of Gladwell’s other books called, Outliers, and so I was familiar with his style of non-fiction, however I did not read the prelude to this novel entitled, you guessed it, The Tipping Point. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, or the boiling point. It is described in the book as the point in which something changed from what it was to what it is due to one key factor shifting from a minority to an equal or greater amount.

He weaved many different storylines through a few separate themes to showcase how the world is changing due to social engineering and all of the different areas we are being impacted by this. You learn about epidemics like bank robberies, endangered big cats, big pharma, Covid and racism. Gladwell's style of writing is anecdotal and research heavy, jumping around from plot to plot and can often be hard to follow, but the stories are told in a way that keeps you hooked in.

I listened to this in an audiobook format, and for anyone else who interested in this book and likes podcasts and audiobooks I HIGHLY recommend listening to this book. The way that they produced the audiobook was reminiscent of a Serial podcast. The chapters were episodic and when there was anecdotal evidence they actually included clips of trials or commentary from other sources to give it a documentary or investigative journalism style feel. I really enjoyed listening to this and got through it in a few days!

Recommendation: YES go and listen to it now!

Link to Amazon