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WITH THE PUBLICATION OF
The Tipping Point
in 2000, Malcolm
Gladwell went from celebrated writer for
The New Yorker
to
international bestselling author and revered public intellec-
tual. The book, which combined social science and delightful
storytelling to explain how trends are born, made him an oracle
for the business world. True,
The Tipping Point
gave New York
City’s drop in crime in the 1990s as much real estate as the rise
of Hush Puppies shoes, but its counterintuitive approach
received an especially warm reception from a corporate class
endlessly obsessedwithmass-market behavior. His subsequent
bestsellers,
Blink
and
Outliers
, burnished his reputation among
the white-collar set, allowing Gladwell to demand as much as
$80,000 for a speech.
In his new book,
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and
the Art of Battling Giants
, Gladwell shows a more dangerous
side. He explores the strategies employed by the powerless
against the powerful throughout history—the triumph of David
over Goliath, the English over the Germans during the Blitz,
Martin Luther King Jr. over Bull Connor and a basketball team
of 11-year-old girls over conventional wisdom.
We met up with Gladwell at Manha an’s Morandi
restaurant on the eve of the book’s publication
to talk about his adventures in ancient
scripture, his curious corporate appeal
and his irksome feelings toward the term
“Gladwellian.” In a different se ing, such
access might have cost somewhere
near $2,000 a minute, but on this driz-
zly afternoon, Gladwell spoke with
Hemispheres
for nothing more than
an espresso and a plate of fruit salad.
THE
HEMI
Q&A:
MALCOLMGLADWELL
© CHRISTOPHER PETERSON/SPLASH NEWS/CORBIS (GLADWELL); SAM POLCER (BOOKS)
HOWTHE
AUTHOR
STACKS UP
For Gladwell,
David and
Goliath
makes book
number five
