https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book): Outliers: The Story of Success is the third non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success.
The publication debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, holding the position on the former for eleven consecutive weeks. Generally well received by critics, Outliers was considered more personal than Gladwell's other works, and some reviews commented on how much Outliers felt like an autobiography. Reviews praised the connection that Gladwell draws between his own background and the rest of the publication to conclude the book. Reviewers also appreciated the questions posed by Outliers, finding it important to determine how much individual potential is ignored by society. However, the lessons learned were considered anticlimactic and dispiriting. The writing style, deemed easy to understand, was criticized for oversimplifying complex social phenomena.
While writing the book, Gladwell noted that "the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work." In Outliers, he hopes to show that there are a lot more variables involved in an individual's success than society cares to admit, and he wants people to "move away from the notion that everything that happens to a person is up to that person". Gladwell noted that, although there was little that could be done with regard to a person's fate, society can still impact the "man"-affected part of an individual's success. When asked what message he wanted people to take away after reading Outliers, Gladwell responded, "What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think."
Outliers has two parts: "Part One: Opportunity" contains six chapters, and "Part Two: Legacy" has four. The book also contains an Introduction and Epilogue. Focusing on outliers, defined by Gladwell as people who do not fit into our normal understanding of achievement, Outliers deals with exceptional people, especially those who are smart, rich, and successful, and those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically plausible. The book offers examples that include the musical ensemble The Beatles, Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates, and the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. In the introduction, Gladwell lays out the purpose of Outliers: "It's not enough to ask what successful people are like. [...] It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't." Throughout the publication, he discusses how family, culture, and friendship each play a role in an individual's success, and he constantly asks whether successful people deserve the praise that we give them.
The book begins with the observation that a disproportionate number of elite Canadian hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year. The reason is that since youth hockey leagues determine eligibility by calendar year, children born on January 1 play in the same league as those born on December 31 in the same year. Because children born earlier in the year are bigger and more mature than their younger competitors, and they are often identified as better athletes, this leads to extra coaching and a higher likelihood of being selected for elite hockey leagues. This phenomenon in which "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is dubbed "accumulative advantage" by Gladwell, while sociologist Robert K. Merton calls it "the Matthew Effect", named after a biblical verse in the Gospel of Matthew: "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." Outliers asserts that success depends on the idiosyncrasies of the selection process used to identify talent just as much as it does on the athletes' natural abilities.
Summarizing the publication, Gladwell notes that success "is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky", and at the end of the book, he remarks, "Outliers wasn't intended as autobiography. But you could read it as an extended apology for my success."
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Wagner recounted a story in his inaugural address: He described a young man he encountered at a recent alumni gathering who asked him what Emory can do to heal the divisiveness and conflict of the world. His answer, he said, grew into a vision of Emory as a genuine community of higher education that would meet the world’s most challenging troubles with its commitment to truth, knowledge, service, and ethical discourse in all academic disciplines.
“This was a challenging question, a vexing question, but it turns out it was a good question, deserving of a thoughtful answer,” Wagner said. “. . . As much as we might want to dodge this young man’s question, doing so would not relieve that nagging sense of responsibility that presses on those in positions of high privilege, that sense of responsibility that makes demands both of people and of institutions. The link between privilege and obligation is inescapable and strong.”
After careful consideration, Wagner said, he told the young man: “‘I don’t know, but I do believe that higher education is part of the answer.’
“Mr. Chairman and all members of the University community, I do believe that, when privilege and responsibility are held together, genuine higher education is a compelling answer to the divisiveness and isolation in the world. Allow me . . . to acknowledge the rich privilege you have extended to me to serve as Emory’s nineteenth president. And out of that great privilege, I enthusiastically respond to the attendant obligations and responsibilities.”
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