It's not about what you think it is. At least not what I thought. Like all Gladwell books, it's eye-opening. In this case, about how little we really understand one another - or assess one another. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true?
Talking to Strangers is a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. In it, Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt.
Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know, and the resulting conflict and misunderstanding have a profound effect on our lives and our world.
In perhaps the most enlightening, closing discussions, on the death of Sandra Bland, he advocates for 'emotional work' training that is critical in so many professions. Too often, domestic disputes, the mentally disturbed, the homeless and other social ills are relegated to the police, who are poorly trained, poorly paid and incapable of addressing most of these.
It's a quick read....and I'd recommend.
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