The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell
View on GoodreadsGladwell's 2000 breakout book reframing social change as epidemiology — ideas, products, and behaviors spread through populations the same way diseases do, with thresholds, super-spreaders, and contextual conditions.
Core ideas
- The three rules: the Law of the Few (a small number of unusually connected, knowledgeable, or persuasive people drive most spread — connectors, mavens, salesmen), the Stickiness Factor (what makes a message memorable), and the Power of Context (small environmental cues dramatically shape behavior).
- The "broken windows" thesis is one of the book's anchor case studies — a claim that has aged poorly under replication, and that Gladwell himself partly revisits in Revenge of the Tipping Point.
- The book's metaphor (social change as contagion) was so successful it shaped a generation of strategy, marketing, and policy thinking — for better and worse.
Published2000
Pages301
ISBN9780316346627
ReadJan 2025
