What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

What The Dog Saw is a compilation of 19 articles by Malcolm Gladwell that were originally published in The New Yorker. The stories share a common theme, namely that Gladwell tries to show us the world through the eyes of others, even if that other happens to be a dog, hence the title.

The book is categorized into three parts. The first part, Obsessives, Pioneers, and other varieties of Minor Genius, describes people who are very good at what they do, but are not necessarily well-known. Part two, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, describes the problems of prediction.

This section covers problems such as intelligence failure, and the fall of Enron. The third section, Personality, Character, and Intelligence, discusses a wide variety of psychological and sociological topics ranging from the difference between early and late bloomers to criminal profiling.

The main themes of What The Dog Saw are the desire to show us the world through the eyes of others, success and failure, and achievement and failure as cultural phenomena.

Gladwell’s primary objective in Outliers is to examine achievement and failure as cultural phenomena in order to determine the factors that typically foster success. The book also explores the problems of prediction, intelligence failure, and the fall of Enron.

What I Liked

Like all of Gladwell’s work, the writing is breezy and engaging with interesting ideas to chew on.

What I Did Not Like

I’m not quite sure what to think of the collection of essays format. On one hand, it is concise and easy to read. On the other hand, it feels rushed and disjointed. Also, the further I get from Gladwell’s work, the more I feel like it’s a little too breezy. The work makes you feel smart…but I’m no longer sure his ideas are truly that useful.