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    Summary and Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success: Based on the Book by Malcolm Gladwell
    Summary and Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success: Based on the Book by Malcolm Gladwell
    Summary and Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success: Based on the Book by Malcolm Gladwell
    Ebook38 pages28 minutes

    Summary and Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success: Based on the Book by Malcolm Gladwell

    By Worth Books

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    About this ebook

    So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Outliers tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Malcolm Gladwell’s book.
     
    Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
     
    This short summary and analysis of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell includes:
     
    • Historical context
    • Chapter-by-chapter summaries
    • Profiles of the main characters
    • Important quotes
    • Fascinating trivia
    • Glossary of terms
    • Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
     
    About Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell:
     
    What makes high achievers, like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and members of the Beatles so successful? Is it pure talent? Personal drive? An off-the-charts IQ?
     
    In Outliers, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell explores the subject of success and argues that there is more to the story than individual exceptionalism. In addition to inherent talent or intelligence, there are other factors that have come into play for the innovators, artists, athletes, and prodigies who have become household names.
     
    Many who have attained rock-star status in their fields may have education, culture, access to a specific technology or opportunity, and ten thousand hours of practice to thank for their reaching their goals.
     
    Through a wide range of examples and anecdotes, learn what makes outliers so extraordinary.
     
    The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateNov 15, 2016
    ISBN9781504043144
    Summary and Analysis of Outliers: The Story of Success: Based on the Book by Malcolm Gladwell
    Author

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      Book preview

      Summary and Analysis of Outliers - Worth Books

      Contents

      Context

      Overview

      Summary

      Cast of Characters

      Direct Quotes and Analysis

      Trivia

      What’s That Word?

      Critical Response

      About Malcolm Gladwell

      For Your Information

      Bibliography

      Copyright

      Context

      Outliers—originally published in 2008—speaks to a culture that regards success largely as a product of individual exceptionalism. It was written at a time when the growth of the tech industry saw the meteoric rise of young moguls such as Mark Zuckerberg, who took Facebook from a dorm-room lark to a multibillion-dollar business—and transformative societal force—seemingly overnight. The popular perception of Zuckerberg and others as visionary prodigies who found fortune and fame through sheer ingenuity is the sort of oversimplified origin narrative that Malcolm Gladwell is seeking to debunk with his alternative perspective on outliers.

      As Gladwell said in a 2011 interview with Jeff Glor, "Outliers was really inspired by the boom—and bust—of the past few years…. CEOs and bankers and sports stars were all justifying their enormous paydays by arguing that they were responsible, entirely, for their own success … I wondered if that was really true."

      In our current age of ever-increasing polarization of wealth and fetishization of fame, the lessons of Outliers may prove very instructive. The idea that there is no such thing as a purely self-created success story may help us to think of ways to increase opportunities for the many and not just the few.

      Overview

      The secret of success is something many of us spend our lives seeking. But what if we’ve been looking in the wrong places all along? We often assume that those who are successful beyond our wildest dreams—think of Bill Gates or the members of the Beatles—must possess some preternatural genius that unequivocally sets them apart from average folks. But Malcolm Gladwell makes a compelling argument in Outliers that, while exceptional ability is certainly a factor in success, it’s not the defining one.

      Instead, he argues—citing a series of fascinating statistics and entertaining anecdotes—that success is largely a product of a combination of fortuitous opportunities, diligent work, and the circumstances in which we

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