Summary Of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point

When Malcolm Gladwell was asked why he was so interested in social epidemics, he said that he thought of them as “a way of making sense of the world.” Social epidemics, otherwise known as popular culture trends, are usually thought to originate independently without correlation. Could there be a pattern behind these epidemics? Gladwell, a New York Times staff writer, answers this question in his 2000 book, The Tipping Point. In this book, Gladwell discusses several social epidemics, including the sudden popularity of the Hush Puppy shoe, and why crime rates in New York city dropped by 60% in only 5 years. He then analyzes them and determines what factors all epidemics have in common. Malcolm Gladwell successfully argues that social epidemics occur …show more content…
Although his examples of pathos are good on their own, they are fewer and further between than the other appeals, making them seem less convincing than his plentiful ethos and logos. For example, Gladwell sets the scene for his argument with an anecdote of a childhood memory. “I remember once as a child seeing our family’s puppy encounter snow for the first time. He was shocked and delighted and overwhelmed, wagging his tail nervously, sniffing about in this strange, fluffy substance, whimpering with the mystery of it all” (Gladwell 13). Gladwell uses this to incite a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity within the reader. He then uses these emotions to segue into the reasoning behind his story. He argues that everyone is a gradualist at heart, like the puppy in his childhood story, therefore it is at times hard to imagine that processes like epidemics can happen all at once. This quick transition allows the readers to better understand what it is that Gladwell is trying to argue by putting it into context. He uses this exact same technique later in the book when discussing the