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 … 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.
Malcom Gladwell has written another great book. Very informative and enlightening.
I love Malcolm Gladwell’s books. This one was the hardest to read – the topics are heavy and disturbing but as usual, it’s so well done.
Provides thought-provoking insights into human behavior.
Dark—but should be required reading
Not as interesting as his previous works but he always has points to ponder.
Definitely not what I expected, completely thought-provoking. Highly recommend.
Liked less than his other books. Harder to follow observations.
This author writes and talks about subjects that most of us don’t think about but reading his books really do get your attention. I have read all of his books.
I liked that the author read his book aloud. I loved the stories he told. They made me think in a different way.
Malcolm Gladwell has written an important work for all of us to learn from regarding our assumptions in understanding strangers . The writer presents us with misconceptions with people such as Hitler . Bernie Madoff and Sandra Bland which all turned out to have totragic consequences. The author stresses the importance of still assuming the best in dealing with strangers He writesTo assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society.Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic But the alternative to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception is worse We should also accept the limits of our ability to decipher strangers. Once again Malcolm Gladwells brilliance shines light on one of our most essential aspects of human behavior to believe in one another
I listened to this book on Audible. It started out very interesting but it soon bogs down and gets tedious through the middle. I was glad when I finally finished the book.