Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering

Twenty-five years after The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell returns to social epidemics to examine the side of contagion he left out: how it gets engineered on purpose. The chapters move through a set of apparently unrelated puzzles, among them the making of modern Miami, the fate of the cheetah, the place of sport in Ivy League admissions, and the idea he calls the Magic Third. Reporting on bank robbery in Los Angeles, a forgotten 1970s television series and an experiment on a small Californian street sits beside alternative histories of the opioid crisis and COVID. Things this volume brings together: • A reconsideration of the ideas in Gladwell's first book • Superspreaders, overstories and the mechanics of deliberate social engineering • Reported case studies spanning crime, media, medicine and education • The author's most personal book to date in tone and framing Suited to readers of narrative non-fiction and of social science written for a general audience, available through Boipoka.