Book Review: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Abacus, London, 2001
(ppb., 279 pp., 11 pp. endnotes/references, indexed, first published by Little, Brown, 2000)

It is not often that book titles manage to raise themselves out of the dust thrown up by the noise of everyday life: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The term used by Gladwell in the title to his first book The Tipping Point has now achieved common currency. The relevance to climate change and global warming could lead one to wonder, in all seriousness, whether the concept of the 'tipping point' was itself at a tipping point, ready to tip. For many years we had been either 'on the threshold' (in control) or 'teetering on the brink' (not in control). Tipping points may be less obvious, and inferred only by subsequent analysis. Why did crime in New York City plummet in the 1980s? This is one of the examples Gladwell considers in detail, identifying that a particular set of circumstances were at a sensitive 'tipping point', and a small, highly targetted effort was able to make a massive difference. An example Gladwell does not consider concerns marine clathrates - methane hydrate held in huge volumes in ocean sediments. A small rise in global temperatures currently will do little to these clathrates. However, with global temperatures predicted to rise by four or five degrees over the next forty years, even a miniscule temperature elevation could then release vast quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, setting off a rapid escalation of further, potentially catastrophic, global warming. The ocean temperature at which methane is released from clathrates is a tipping point in terms of climate change.
Most of Gladwell's examples of tipping points are focused around human behaviour. It is easy to see why the same term is used both for physical and social processes. When a transmissible disease starts to spread, the rate of social transmission is likely to change in response to a variety of social factors, such as changes in seasonal behaviour. A viral epidemic, such as seasonal 'flu, may well pass through a tipping point, both on its way up and on its way down. At the time of writing, the much-expected pandemic 'flu epidemic based on the H5N1 bird 'flu virus has not reached a tipping point, although it is understood what that tipping point would be: the point at which the virus mutates to permit efficient human-human transmission. Gladwell considers the fashion industry and how there are tipping points in the sale of particular fashion items. He also considers Paul Revere's ride that led to the American War of Independence, analysing what what made the ride a tipping point.
Gladwell identifies both that the context must be right and that the 'contagion' is contagious, 'sticky'. He also considers that three roles are necessary for a social tipping point: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The designations are supeficially attractive and may contain more than simply a kernel of truth. However, in my view, Gladwell fails to take account of the effectiveness of the vested interests of international commerce and national politics in controlling what we buy, what we watch/read, and what we think. Indeed, his message looks as though it will be attractive to a popular culture that prizes individualism: if you are smart in some way, you can make a difference. Maybe you know lots of people (connectors), maybe you are obsessed with footware or gizmos or supermarket prices (mavens), maybe you can sell beachwear to people living in Greenland (salesmen). I thought time and again: Gladwell knows the culture for which he is writing. A society in which intellect is not fully trusted, but in which people dream of escaping both from the vista of complexity revealed by science, and from the daily tedium of humdrum graft to 'stars in their eyes' silver-bullet breakthroughs.
It is valuable that Gladwell offers plenty of evidence to support his assertions. In popular social science style, the text is made up of one anecdote after another, and includes several well-worked-through examples, albeit largely from the United States. The text is well-supported (11 pages of endnotes and references) with many references to academic books and academic papers, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, albeit largely written by Americans in the United States. This US focus should be surprising as Gladwell was born in the UK and raised in Ontario. The parochialism started to irritate me, not because I hold any anti-American prejudices, but because I started to doubt that his thesis would hold as true for other societies around the world. He does offer a Polynesian example of teenage suicide. However, by this point in the book I had started to become suspicious. How much does Gladwell know about Polynesian society? How much does he understand about suicidal ideation and pyschotherapy? Again, this should be surprising because Gladwell's mother was a Jamaican psychotherapist. Although the precise example of Polynesian teenage suicide may well be valid, I was equally sure that Gladwell was well beyond his home turf.
Academic writing does not make claims beyond those that it can defend. Academic writing considers short-comings, objections and alternative interpretations. Gladwell should be familiar with academic writing because his father, Graham, is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Canada's leading University of Waterloo, Ontario. What is absent from Gladwell's book is anything critical of his thesis, anything that may refute his ideas. At two points (crime reduction in New York City, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore) Gladwell does rehearse alternative suggestions for what took place, but only as a rhetorical backdrop for his 'white knight' tipping point solution. It is as though, for Gladwell, there is a silver bullet to be found, a tipping point that will make all the difference. The Tipping Point is a text written to persuade and convince. Gladwell is acting as maven and salesman for his own ideas. The example he cites at which he appears to me to be weakest is when considering tobacco smoking reduction behaviour. He fails to acknowledge the emotional complexity of smoking, its multitude of meanings, the meanings associated with quitting, and the fact that much smoking reduction advertising is aimed at adults. Having a degree in history, it is far from obvious that issues of suicide and addictions are areas of Gladwell's strength. Happily, however, his text appears to be much more persuasive when it comes to the commercial advertising of fashion items to a segmented US market. About this he writes well. Indeed, his entire text is written in a style that justifiably belongs to a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.
It would seem that Gladwell applied to his book, the sub-title of which is How little things can make a big difference, the lessons that constitute his chapters. I bought the book because I had heard of it many times and was interested to learn. The book's advertising puff reads: "The International No. 1 Bestseller", a message advertising how contagious the book is.
The concept of tipping points is important, and deserves to be explored, understood and explained more fully, and above all more rigorously. Maybe is is me who at fault in hoping for a modicum of academic scepticism and balance in a popular social science text. When all is said and done, Gladwell's book is an enthusiastic and encouraging introduction to tipping points.

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Gladwell biographical information drawn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell accessed 24 March 2008