Talking to Strangers : : What we Should Know About the People we Don't Know

Locations
Call Number: 302 Gl, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / General / Gladwell, Malcolm
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Westgate Branch

Introduction: "Step out of the car!" -- Part one: Spies and diplomats: two puzzles. Fidel Castro's revenge ; Getting to know der Führer -- Part two: Default to truth. The queen of Cuba ; The holy fool ; Case study: The boy in the shower -- Part three: Transparency. The Friends fallacy ; A (short) explanation of the Amanda Knox case ; Case study: The fraternity party -- Part four: Lessons. KSM: what happens when the stranger is a terrorist? -- Part five: Coupling. Sylvia Plath ; Case study: The Kansas City experiments ; Sandra Bland.
In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers-to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines to illustrate that people size up the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of those they don't know both wrongly and with misplaced confidence.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Book submitted by Clown81 on August 31, 2019, 4:40pm What.

Well worth the time. submitted by GJBarnett2 on July 8, 2020, 11:33pm A series of subjects loosely linked by the title but very interesting and well worth the time. Highly recommended.

poignant submitted by crp on July 28, 2020, 2:07pm poignant if you want to understand a different perspective on Sandra Bland's death

picks up pace submitted by kerenemoore on August 26, 2020, 11:51pm My wife was pretty disappointed with What the Dog Saw but Gladwell redeems himself with this book. He's back on track, linking suicide trends with child molestation scandals, epic pyramid schemes, spy fails, coupling theory, and modern day policing. How did our society get to a place where it's normative for Sandra Bland to be pulled from a car for failing to put out a cigarette during a regular traffic stop? Gladwell pieces together the dots. Good read.