Is Malcolm Gladwell Out of Ideas?
Anand Giridharadas is the publisher of the newsletter The.Ink and the author, most recently, of “The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy.”
Malcolm Gladwell could have written a fresh book. Instead, he created a brand extension of his 2000 hit, “The Tipping Point.”
The result, “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” is a genre bender: self-help without the practical advice, storytelling without the literariness, nonfiction without the vital truths, entertainment without the pleasure, a thriller without actual revelation and a business book without the actionable insights.
But it will be big! For Gladwell’s books belong to that special category where books are not books so much as advertisements. “Revenge of the Tipping Point” might get you to sign up for Gladwell’s MasterClass course on storytelling. It might lead you to Pushkin Industries, the podcast company he helped start. Or it could inspire a business to hire him to give the new talk his speaking agency is already marketing on “how not to miss the forest for the trees.”
My criticism isn’t that Gladwell speaks to a wide audience. That is what I admire most about him. He is the literary equivalent of those politicians who get nonvoters to the polls. With legacy media eroding and book sales sluggish and disinformation spreading and truth under attack by some of our own leaders, millions of people live in idea deserts. For them, Gladwell is a farm stand.
