Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist and author born in England in 1963 and raised in Canada, whose popular books on social science have reached a wide readership since the late 1990s. He writes in English, and his work sits at the meeting point of sociology, psychology and investigative reporting.

The son of a Jamaican-born psychotherapist and an English mathematics professor, he moved with his family to Ontario at the age of six, settling in a Mennonite community. He studied history at the University of Toronto and, after failing to break into advertising, began writing for conservative publications. In 1987 he joined The Washington Post, where he covered science and business. From then on he read academic research in search of ideas for his stories, a habit that has earned him both praise and criticism, since he tends to highlight the well-documented exceptions to general rules. In 1996 he joined The New Yorker, where he still writes.

His thinking revolves around one question: why do some people succeed while others, equally capable, do not? Gladwell challenges what he calls the myth of talent and argues that success depends largely on environment, on the opportunities people receive and on the practice they accumulate. His books mix vivid stories with research in psychology and sociology, and in The Tipping Point he applied the logic of epidemics to the spread of trends and ideas. His claims have been debated: some researchers accuse him of oversimplifying the studies he cites, and he has acknowledged overstating the importance of the broken windows theory.

His legacy lies less in a closed theory than in a style of popular writing that has made sociological readings of everyday life widely familiar. Through the podcast Revisionist History he has applied the same method to history, revisiting established events and figures. He has received academic honours in Canada and the United States, and his influence can be seen in the growth of nonfiction that blends narrative, data and scrutiny of received ideas.