Common Book Project 2006

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell is the Common Book for fall 2006 incoming freshmen.  The book was selected by a committee representing student life, faculty, staff, and students.  Committee members agreed that the ideas and experiences described in this book will encourage discussion related to many disciplines and majors including biology, history, business, education, art, sociology, and political science.  The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea.  In it Malcolm Gladwell explores a new way of understanding why change often happens quickly.  For example, what makes TV shows such as Sesame Street and Blues Clues so good at teaching children how to read?  Why is there an increase in the number of teenagers who smoke, in spite of the widely known fact that cigarettes kill?  Why did the crime rate in New York City drop dramatically in the mid-1990s?  Why is word-of-mouth such a powerful way to promote ideas, new products, and social change?  Gladwell describes the ways in which these phenomena are social epidemics similar to outbreaks of infectious disease.