The biography of an idea: that many of the problems we face - from teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics and are capable of sudden and dramatic change due to their inherent volatility. The author explores the ramifications of this, offering a way to view the world.

The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is quite simple: that many of the problems we face - from murder to teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics. They aren't linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them. They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction. Years of well-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all, yet the right intervention - at just the right time - can start a cascade of change.;Many of the social ills that face us today, in other words, are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population: little things can cause them to tip at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those tipping points are. In this study, Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this. Not simply for politicians and policy-makers, his method provides a way of viewing everyday experience and seeking to enable us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company.

'Hip and hopeful, THE TIPPING POINT is like the idea it describes: concise, elegant but packed with social power. A book for anyone who cares about how society works and how we can make it better' George Stephanopoulos 'A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person thinks about the world around him' Michael Lewis, author of LIAR'S POKER 'Genuinely fascinating and frequently startling ... The kind of book from which you'll be regaling your friends with intriguing snippets for weeks to come' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 'A wonderfully offbeat study of that little-understood phenomenon, the social epidemic' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating book that makes you see the world in a different way' FORTUNE 'Gladwell packs a huge amount of data and extrapolation into an admirably clear and concise book.' THE TIMES 'This is the American bestseller that will make you change the way you look at the world. It is a brilliant and convincing analysis of social epidemics.' DAILY MAIL 'Intriguing...Gladwell's oblique take on cultural phenomena is as accurate as it is entertaining.' NEW STATESMAN