Revenge of the Tipping Point

Revenge of the Tipping Point

Twenty-five years after The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the hidden forces that make ideas, behaviours and crises spread—with a darker question: what happens when the same forces that can create positive change are deliberately used to shape society? 

“Addictive... fascinating and provocative.” — The Guardian

“Gladwell is a great storyteller with a contagious sense of curiosity.” — The Economist 

If the world can be moved by the slightest push, then the person who knows where and when to push has real power. So who are those people? What are their intentions? And what happens when social contagion becomes a tool?

In Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell revisits the ideas that made The Tipping Point a landmark work of popular social science, but this time he turns his attention to the dark side of social epidemics. Why does one city develop a particular culture of corruption? Why do certain behaviours suddenly become widespread? Why do some communities remain stable while others reach a point where everything begins to change? Through a series of unexpected puzzles, Gladwell looks beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary events to uncover the hidden patterns, group dynamics and environmental forces that push societies towards a tipping point. 

His investigation takes readers from the streets of Los Angeles and the world of bank robbers to elite university sports, a forgotten television programme from the 1970s, a tiny California neighbourhood and the complicated social dynamics surrounding race and group proportions. He also revisits two of the most consequential epidemics of recent history—COVID-19 and the opioid crisis—asking how particular people, institutions and environments can act as “superspreaders” of ideas and behaviour. Along the way, Gladwell introduces concepts such as overstories, the Magic Third and social engineering, showing how seemingly insignificant details can accumulate until they transform an entire group.

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