The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, published in 2000, borrows the language of epidemiology to explain social change. Gladwell argues that trends, fashions, crime waves and word-of-mouth successes often spread like viruses, building slowly and then reaching a moment when they take off.
He proposes three rules. The law of the few holds that a small number of people, whom he calls connectors, mavens and salesmen, do much of the spreading. The stickiness factor concerns what makes a message memorable, illustrated by children's television such as Sesame Street. The power of context argues that small environmental details shape behaviour, with New York's subway clean-up and the broken windows theory of crime as examples.
Case studies include the revival of Hush Puppies shoes, Paul Revere's ride and a teen-smoking epidemic. The book helped create a genre of idea-driven nonfiction and gave marketers and policymakers a popular vocabulary. Later research has questioned some of its examples, and Gladwell himself revisited the subject in a 2024 follow-up.
Book details
| Author | Malcolm Gladwell |
|---|---|
| First published | 2000 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Psychology |
| Type | Non-fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 280 |
Themes
- Social epidemics
- Influence of key people
- Stickiness of messages
- Context and behaviour
- Word of mouth
Who should read it
Marketers, organisers and curious readers who want to understand how trends catch on.