Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers

By Malcolm Gladwell

  • Release Date: 2019-09-10
  • Genre: Sociology
Score: 4
4
From 1,866 Ratings

Description

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong—now with a new afterword by the author.

 A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press

 How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true?
 
Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt.
 
Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

Reviews

  • Thought Provoking Writing

    4
    By Awesome Rowland's
    The book was incredibly well-written and I enjoyed the nuances of each lesson and chapter. Would recommend to anyone I come across!
  • Magnificent

    5
    By RyNWrubel
    Gladwell, once again, provides an excellent account of real-world problems. The reader is forced to examine their reality and consider how bad we are at Talking to Strangers.
  • Loved this audiobook.

    5
    By Nada tabs
    I find Gladwell’s books always interesting. I enjoy that they help me examine my assumptions and broaden my understanding of human behavior. Once again I learned there are no easy answers. People and situations are vastly more complicated than what we see through the media. I enjoyed this as an audiobook and recommend that mode.
  • Horrible read

    2
    By Silverporsche
    Boring beyond belief.
  • For forward thinkers

    4
    By tchaiti203
    Still doesn’t put blame on anyone.?!
  • Enlightening as Usual

    4
    By Kjbrew1
    Gladwell puts together another string of familiar occurrences and then pulls them apart to help us understand why we do what we do. Entertaining, enlightening and informative.
  • Love

    5
    By YourMom84
    I couldn’t say enough good things about this book. I love this author and am so relieved and delighted to see him defend unusual and/or misunderstood people in such a relevant and powerful way. It’s so important to stay humble when it comes to our perception of others intentions
  • Great Listen

    5
    By Jen Kpp
    I listened to the audio version and found it fascinating. I would imagine you don’t get the same experience from reading it so if you can, listen instead.
  • Well done

    5
    By AidaLone
    Everything Malcomb Gladwell does is wonderful, including this book. It’s well written and well researched. Important subject matter and well worth the read.
  • Not his best

    3
    By Colzac
    To not discuss race as part of transparency is ridiculous. Many have been trained by society to default to the worst human traits when they deal with African Americans who are strangers. For the author not to address these prejudices is extremely short sighted. Not one of his best books.

Comments