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Outliers: The Story of Success Paperback – June 7, 2011

by Malcolm Gladwell (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 37,173 ratings
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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.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Back Bay Books
  4. Publication date
    June 7, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    5.55 x 1.15 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0316017930
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0316017930
  8. Lexile measure
    1080L
  9. See all details
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  1. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
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  2. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
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  3. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In the vast world of nonfiction writing, Malcolm Gladwell is as close to a singular talent as exists today...Outliers is a pleasure to read and leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward."―David Leonhardt, New York Times Book Review

"The explosively entertaining Outliers might be Gladwell's best and most useful work yet...There are both brilliant yarns and life lessons here: Outliers is riveting science, self-help, and entertainment, all in one book."―Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly

"No other book I read this year combines such a distinctive prose style with truly thought-provoking content. Gladwell writes with a high degree of dazzle but at the same time remains as clear and direct as even Strunk or White could hope for."―Atlanta Journal Constitution

About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point,Blink, Outliers,What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the Time 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy'sTop Global Thinkers.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (June 7, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316017930
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316017930
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1080L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 1.15 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 37,173 ratings

About the author

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Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996. He is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw. Prior to joining The New Yorker, he was a reporter at the Washington Post. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He now lives in New York.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
37,173 global ratings
My vocal coach told me to read this
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Damn good book. I just started reading it this afternoon and I struggle to put it down. Listen to my vocal coach, read this book.
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Top reviews from the United States

Joseph
5.0 out of 5 stars Another terrific book from Gladwell
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2008
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"Outliers", like other Gladwell books, is very enjoyable. It offers some interesting perspectives about what makes some people more successful than others, with particular emphasis on those who far exceed expectations. Many of the book's criticisms focus on what the book is not. I think that is a mistake. This is simply a fine book, a very thoughtful and easy read. The book goes into how one's ethnic roots and specific opportunities set the stage for dramatic success, then working hard takes over. For example:

1. An ancestral emphasis on community involvement can lead to health results which beat the odds.

2. The date of one's birth can affect athletic and academic success, as the oldest in a group of youth, will lead to the 'Matthew Effect', better coaching/teaching, more games/practice, etc. There is an accumulative advantage. On a list of the wealthiest people of all-time, besides opportunity showing up with so many from America, among that group, being born around 1835 and around 1955 stand out, to take advantage of when railroads and Wall Street emerged and when computer time-sharing emerged, respectively.

3. The 10,000 hour rule. Gladwell thinks about 10,000 hours of concentrating at a skill is necessary to excel at something.

4. Whether it is height in basketball or IQ, just being tall enough or intelligent enough is all that really matters, same with colleges as long as they are good enough. Practical intelligence, knowledge and savvy are what really counts and family background is the key to having those. Parents should be involved with their children, with lots of negotiating and expectations of child talk-back, necessary to cause a child to develop a sense of entitlement, maybe not the most moral approach, but extreme success madates that.

5. Jewish immigrants had advantage of occupational skills, like in the garment industry - enterpreneurial skills versus other immigrants like peasant farmers. Work was more meaningful. Their offspring saw this, plus NYC public schools were probably the best in the world at the time.

6. Harlan, Kentucky is an example of herdsmen settlers, with a culture of honor from Scotch-Irish ancestors, influenced descendants, Gladwell saying that crime in the South more influenced more by personal than economic reasons. Certain 'insult' words have bigger effect.

7. Plane crashes are more from human errors in teamwork and communication. Cultural respect for authority a big factor; can keep a subordinate from directing a superior in an emergency. Plus, 'mitigated speech' can be a problem. Can be remedied by training in 'Aviation English'.

8. Asians being better in Math, likely related to ancestral tradition of rice paddies, which are complicated and require hard work throughout the year. Western farming is more mechanical with usually an off-season with little work. Here again, more meaningful and hard work. Plus, Asians learn to count faster because of language differences for numbers.

9. K.I.P.P. Academy in the Bronx, charter middle school, is successful because it has long school days and short summer vacations, with students who commit to work hard. Studies have shown schools generally do well when they are in session, the problem are kids losing ground without good parental involvement during summer vacation. So, it is possible to make up for poor childhood family situations. Makes school meaningful. Incentives, rewards, fun and discipline is the formula.

A terrific book.
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Daniel
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and illuminating
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024
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My main takeaway is how can I help give others the advantages I had to this point and maybe some of the ones I didn't so they can be their best self.
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Roberto J. Herrera
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the Investment
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2014
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Outliers made it to the #1 spot as a national bestseller, and it's well deserved. It is interesting, clearly written, and the argument is logically presented and, for the most part, well supported. The book's central ideas are 1) that brain power, character, and motivation are overrated; 2) other factors—often not easily recognized or not given enough significance—such as where and when a person was born, his or her family history, and the particular twists of fate and coincidences in a life story, are integral to the success (or failure) of an individual.

While his second premise makes sense to most of us, it is frequently downplayed in favor of intelligence, desire, ambition, and other character traits when analyzing the achievements of the famous and highly successful. No one, no matter how smart and driven, can do it alone, says Gladwell. And he insists that enough favorable factors must come together to clear the path and propel the individual to become a winner. For example, Bill Gates was born at the right time (computers coming into their own), to wealthy parents, and through various fortuitous events ended up in a situation that gave him unprecedented access to computers in the late 1960's when he was only an eighth grader. Various individuals acted as facilitators to make it possible for him to continue his programming work through high school and into college. In Gates words, "I was very lucky."

Gladwell recognizes that Gates was brilliant and driven, and those faculties no doubt played in his favor, but the author maintains that the right circumstances—the precise state of technology when he was just the right age, the financial means, the mentors and coincidences—had to be there. He supports the argument by using contrast, including examples of extremely intelligent individuals, geniuses in fact, who were also highly motivated, but whose life circumstances did not favor them, and thus failed to achieve their enormous potential. In fact, he shows that high intelligence is an advantageous factor in achieving success only to a point beyond which it does not matter how many more IQ points you register.

Curiously, Gladwell misses an opportunity to advance more of his basic premises when analyzing the success of the Beatles, instead narrowing his focus on the break the band got by accepting a gig in Hamburg, Germany, which forced them to play a variety of music genres many hours daily, seven days a week before they took America by storm. His emphasis here is the number of hours the Beatles played during that time, which made them much better musicians, but he does not highlight that the turbulent 1960's were ripe for radical change in various areas of society, music being one. One of the author's main points in other parts of the book is that the period in which a person happens to be alive has an enormous influence on his or her personal life outcome, and the Beatles are a perfect example of that. And yet, Gladwell does not seize the opportunity to emphasize this. Quite odd, really.

The influence of culture in determining success or failure in specific fields is interestingly illustrated in Gladwell's analysis of airplane crashes. Until recently, Korean Air had a relatively high number of accidents, and it was discovered that this was largely due to their culture, which frowns upon the questioning of authority. It was found that Korean co-pilots and flight engineers were extremely hesitant to question the Captain's actions and decisions, much less clearly convey their concerns, when they detected potential problems.

A similar situation resulted in an Avianca (a Colombian airline) crash in New York in January 1990. In that incident, the factors of bad weather, a very tired flight captain, and a malfunctioning auto-pilot were exacerbated by their being on a holding pattern over the city while running out of fuel and the first officer's reluctance to convey the gravity of the situation forcefully enough to the very busy and commanding New York air traffic controllers. He did not want to anger the "authorities," so the exchanges via radio maintained a business-as-usual tone until the plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed.

Gladwell offers many other fascinating and surprising facts in Outliers, such as the odd relationship between successful hockey players and their birth month, why the 1930's was the perfect time for New York Jewish lawyers to be born, why the 1950's residents of Roseto, Pennsylvania seemed immune to heart disease even though their diet was loaded with fat, few were committed to exercise, and many smoked heavily and struggled with obesity.

If you find these extraordinary social phenomena interesting, you will like this book.
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Justin
5.0 out of 5 stars Author of tipping point with another great book.
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2024
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Big hit informative and interesting book just like Gladwell’s other book Tipping Point.
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Mariana Ponce
5.0 out of 5 stars Gran lectura
Reviewed in Mexico on January 13, 2024
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La condición en la que lo recibí fue inmejorable así como el tiempo de entrega. Este libro me mantuvo picada de principio a fin, disfruté mucho cada capítulo y me hizo querer retomar el hábito de la lectura.
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Renata P.
5.0 out of 5 stars Entrega ótima. Produto perfeito.
Reviewed in Brazil on November 5, 2023
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Entrega ótima e produto perfeito.
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Suman
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Reviewed in India on March 29, 2024
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The best book i can tell. And author explained very clearly
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Me encanto el libro
Reviewed in Spain on March 10, 2024
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Super interesante y facil de leer
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