Outliers

Title: Outliers: The Story of Success

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Genre: Popular Science

Pages (words): 309 (N/A)

Readability: N/A

Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2

Reviewed by: Ben

Description: Following up on the success of The Tipping Point and Blink, Gladwell's third book explores just what makes some people extraordinarily successful. He examines the stories of professional athletes, rock stars, and millionaires and looks for key moments in their lives when they got their chance to make it big, and how those opportunities came about. In the end, he relates this to our lives and thinks about what we might do to promote even more success stories.

Thoughts: I like to read Gladwell's books. He basically tells a bunch of stories and summarizes a bunch of research and tries to tell a coherent story throughout it all. He does a great job of finding and summarizing the studies and stories (they're all fascinating), but at times I think he falls a bit short in being able to pull it all together in to one big theme,. Outliers was no exception to this, but overall it's probably my favorite of the three big ones he's written. And, I think that for the most part he makes good points. The main one, and I'm probably not giving too much away here, is that people become extremely successful not because they are that much better than everyone else, but because they had an opportunity that most other people never had and they made the most of it. That's something that I truly believe. I also especially liked the portion near the end of the book about how one's culture can really define what a person excels at, despite whatever talents they were naturally born with. To whet your appetite, he claims that the Chinese are generally good at math mainly because of the culture they grew up in, and especially because of the language they speak. And I actually buy his argument. Anyway, it was a fun little book, it gave me a lot to think about, and I enjoyed reading it.

Disclaimer: I think there were a few swear words in this book, but nothing too major.

The Path Between the Seas

Title: The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal

Author: David McCullough

Genre: History

Pages (words): 698 (227,244)

Readability: 12.4

Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2

Reviewed by: Ben

Description: A shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific was dreamed of for hundreds of years before the Panama Canal was built. Multiple expeditions set out to determine whether the feat was even possible, and, if so, where the best route lay. McCullough lays out the attempt of the French at building the canal, and the subsequently successful efforts of the Americans to connect the oceans. The entire book covers over 40 years of history.

Thoughts: Every David McCullough book I read, I think to myself, "Why has no one ever told me this before?!?" This book was no exception. All the way though it, I couldn't believe that I knew basically nothing about the building of the Panama Canal. About all I knew was that it was built by the U.S. (I had no idea the French tried it first). Anyway, this was a great book, as all McCullough books are. I especially loved the engineering parts that described the building of the locks and how they overcame the technical issues of connecting two oceans across a continent. Because I can't help comparing this McCullough to the others that I've read, I have to say that I've probably liked his other ones a bit more than this one. The Great Bridge (about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge) was a very similar book that I personally enjoyed more than this book. But that shouldn't take anything away from The Path Between the Seas. The book is superbly put together, easy to read, fully of primary-source material, and interesting throughout.

Disclaimer: None.