Tuesday, October 29, 2013

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and The Art of Battling Giants, by Malcolm Gladwell

(hb; 2013: nonfiction)


From the inside flap:

"Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palenstine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then, the names David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants.  David's victory was improbable and miraculous.  He shouldn't have won.

"Or should he have?

"In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

"Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago.  From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high cost of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms - all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity."


Review:

Good, informative and layman-friendly book that's as breeze-through and engaging as any of Gladwell's other books.  While David and Goliath is light-weight offering, more a furtherance - a reminder - of themes he's tackled in previous books, it still held my interest with its solid writing and a few surprising and makes-sense facts.

Check it out.

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