David and Goliath is the biblical story of a young man who is able to defeat an awe inspiring warrior in single combat despite seemingly having no chance, it’s the story of the greatest upset of all time.

Or is it?

That’s the question that Malcolm Gladwell raises in his most recent book, titled David and Goliath.  Similar to the rest of his books, Gladwell uses psychological research and anecdotal stories to explain exactly what happened with many upsets throughout history.

Book Stats

275 pages

Non-Fiction

Enjoyment

This book is very similar to Gladwell’s other books in that it will force you to change the way that you think about some things.  The basic premise of this book is about underdogs and how they can defeat those who are greatly favored above them, but overall I’d say that the central point of the book is how many times what we think of as advantages can often be disadvantages, and vice versa.

Starting with the titular story, look at the battle of David vs Goliath.  In the story, Goliath is described as a huge man who is heavily clad in armor and carrying multiple heavy weapons.  In comparison, David is a young boy wearing very light clothing who is going to fight Goliath with a sling.  Obviously Goliath should be favored, except he shouldn’t be.

Gladwell discusses what a sling actually was in biblical times, it was a weapon used to fire a rock at another person from a distance, and according to some modern day research, a person well trained and accustomed to using a sling as a weapon can be deadly accurate from from a range of up to 200 yards.

So in the battle, you have a slow, but very powerful close range fighter, and an attacker who has less defense, but more maneuverability and a greater range.  Goliath was expecting a fighter similar to him to fight, but instead he was up against a ranged attacker that he had no chance of beating, because he was dead before David was anywhere near close enough to strike him.

This book is entirely about changing the way you look at the world, how can an underdog beat a goliath?  By playing a different game.  There are always ways in life to turn a disadvantage to an advantage, and if you take the time to carefully analyze the situation, you’ll see ways it could be done.

I enjoyed the book, but I don’t think that it’s Gladwell’s best effort (The Tipping Point is probably still his best book).  All of the ideas were solid and backed up with research (that he cites all of, so if you wanted to you could easily follow his steps and check up on anything you don’t agree with), and he shows a variety of different examples to make his point.  My biggest qualm with the book is that to me the last section didn’t tie in very well with the first two.  It was still interesting, and definitely worth reading, but it felt a little out of place for me.

Overall Grade

Another solid book by Gladwell that really makes you analyze some things that we take for granted every day.

9/10

So a couple of days ago I put up a short post about how I was partially through Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Well, today I finished the book, and there’s a lot to talk about with it, so I’m just going to get on with my discussion.

Book Stats

337 pages (plus about 80 pages of notes and citations)

Non-Fiction

Thoughts

My first thought is what ultimately led me to want to read this book.  I’d heard about it on many different occasions from listening to or reading a variety of different things where people have discussed writing.  One of the most common things to come up in the idea of storytelling (and mythology) is The Hero’s Journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell in this book.  The basic premise can be broken down any number of ways, but I’m going to outline it very briefly.

• The hero receives a call to adventure
• The hero passes an early trial often with the assistance of another person (or god)
• The hero travels from the known world to the unknown world
• The hero accomplishes their goal (defeating a monster, or rescuing someone from said monster), again, often with divine assistance
• The hero returns to the known world to share their newfound knowledge or power with the rest of society

That’s a very simplistic breakdown of the Hero’s Journey, but it has many of the pivotal points included.  If you look at nearly any story (be it mythological or simply fictional) you’ll find that this is a very common series of events for the hero to go through.

One of the most well known examples of the Hero’s Journey in modern times is of course Star Wars.  Lucas was very deeply immersed in Campbell’s ideas (I believe that he personally knew Campbell, but don’t quote me on that) and used them to shape the story in star wars.  I’ve heard some discussion about how effective this is as a method of constructing a story, but I’m not going to get into that here.

Getting back to the actual book, there are issues with it if you’re a casual reader.  The first is that the book was not written to be read casually, this is an academic text, and it shows.  There are some large sections where the book was a difficult read, and even with the easier sections I found that the best way to read this book was to read 10-15 pages, then go do something else for a while, then come back and read another 10-15 pages (which is part of the reason that it took me a week to get through the book).

Another issue that I have with the book is that it’s a little dated at this point.  The original edition was copyright 1949 and a very large part of the discussion is based directly around Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis.  This is a large part of why the book is difficult to read.  I have some familiarity with Freud’s ideas (as we discussed them in nearly every Psychology class I took) but I don’t have a deep understanding of them because for the most part Freud was wrong about nearly everything.  Freud was absolutely vital in getting the ball rolling on psychological research, but his theories were based almost entirely upon his own life and he had no empirical evidence to back them up.

The second section deals with more of the common aspects of the worldview of mythology as opposed to the hero’s actions and motivations and as a result is a much easier (and in many ways more interesting) read.  It’s interesting to see just how common most of the ideas that occur in mythology and religion from around the world really are.

So what’s the verdict on the book?  It’s easily one of the most influential books of the 20th century because it inspired so many different stories.  But while it’s important, it’s not something that I would suggest for a casual read.  If you’re a writer interested in the Hero’s Journey, there are various other places where you can find all sorts of information about the stages of the Hero’s Journey that are much easier to get through than this book.

Overall Grade

A monumentally important book that I would never suggest as a casual read.

6/10

I think the first time I heard about this book was when my wonderful Greek Myth teacher mentioned it one day in class.  So when I saw the book while wandering around Barnes & Noble a while ago, I decided to buy it.  Along with having it mentioned by a teacher who’s opinion I highly respect with regards to books (I’ve read several other books on her recommendations and enjoyed them all), the title of the book is something that is definitely going to get you to at least look at it.  On with the review.

Book Stats

390 pages (after that there were another 50 pages of notes and indexes)

Non-Fiction

Enjoyment

The way the book is described by the blurb on the back cover is as a story that revolves around the story of two very different men who lived during a seminal time in the history of Chicago and this country as a whole.  The two people who form the basis of this book are Daniel Burnham, who was one of the central architects of the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, and H. H. Holmes, one of the first and most notorious serial killers in American history.

While that’s how the book is sold, upon reading it I saw it as coming across a little differently.  Most of the book focused on Burnham and the World’s Fair.  Strewn in throughout the book are mentions of Holmes and his actions, in large part because he was living in Chicago during the time of the World’s Fair.  Ultimately though, Holmes was active before, during, and after the World’s Fair.  Here’s what I think really happened when Larson was writing this book.  He was interested in writing about the World’s Fair – and justifiably so, there was a lot of interesting information in the book about the World’s Fair – but he needed something to help sell the book.  During the course of his research he found out about Holmes, and decided to include information about him in the book.

So really, the two people whose stories form the basis for this novel come across more as a marketing decision than anything else.  A book about the World’s Fair could be interesting, but it’s not going to sell as much as a book about a serial killer.  Whatever your thoughts about what this means about our society, the truth is that violence sells more than engineering, architecture, and landscaping.

So now that we have my thoughts on how the book came to be in its current form, lets talk about how the book works out.  There is a lot of good information in the book, and Larson works hard to craft an interesting story, but it feels like too much of a train wreck for me.  The title of a book is the first promise that the author makes to the readers, and after finishing the book, I feel lied to.  The decision to focus more on Holmes for the marketing worked well enough to get me to buy the book, but it wasn’t enough to keep me thrilled for the duration of the book.

In the end, this was a very well written book about the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.  But if you’re looking into this book for information about Holmes, I’m sure there are other books that focus much more on his story rather than other events of the time he was living.

Overall Grade

A well written book, but it wasn’t the book I wanted to read.  If you’re interested in architectural and engineering history this would be an interesting book, if you’re interested in the life of one of America’s first serial killers, you can probably look elsewhere.

5/10

I wrote in my review of What the Dog Saw that Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite non-fiction writers and probably the best non-fiction writers I’ve ever read.  This book further shows why Gladwell is the best person writing non-fiction in the world.

Outliers is another full book by Gladwell focusing on one subject.  While the subtitle of the book is The Story of Success, this is a fairly minor point as it pertains to the book as a whole.  The early parts of the book deal with several very successful people throughout the world.  It begins by discussing hockey and soccer players and some of the factors that may lead to their success in their field.  While we may originally think that these people may have natural talent, or maybe they just worked harder, Gladwell looks at something that most people never think about, when they were born.

Psychology studies have shown that for many athletes, the date for the age cutoff has a large effect on which people succeed in that sport.  For example, in Canada the cutoff date for joining youth hockey is January 1, you have to be 10 years old by that date to join.  The child who turns 10 on January 2 has another year before he is able to join.  While 11 months of growth might not be much when you’re in your 20’s, when you’re 10 those 11 months are a huge difference.

This is just one example where Gladwell shows that the situation that you find yourself in has a larger effect on your success than anyone ever thinks about.  He uses different examples relating to the time of the year athlete’s were born, the era that different lawyers were born, how your culture can affect the way you relate to superiors, and other fun topics.

I have a BA in Psychology, and I’ve heard of several of the studies that Gladwell uses to support his arguments throughout the book.  Gladwell’s gift is to write about complicated scientific and psychological topics in a way that makes them easy to understand.  He also focuses on the individual people within the stories that he talks about and makes you appreciate their stories.

Gladwell is a wonderful writer who focuses on topics that most people never consider, his books are all wonderful and I suggest them to anyone who ever wants to know more about how the world works.

10/10