The Impressionists, meanwhile, needed to have their work admitted to the Paris Salon, 'the most important art show in the world,' to be taken seriously. Brown's organic chemistry course pushed her over the edge, and she dropped science after her sophomore year. She preferred to be a little fish in a big pond, but she paid a huge price. She was admitted to both Brown University and the University of Maryland, and she chose Brown for all the reasons you'd expect. The book's most crafty, engaging chapter ties together the Impressionist movement and college choices to highlight the fact that gaining admission to elite institutions, which we typically perceive as an advantage, is no guarantee of success.Ĭaroline Sacks (which is not her real name - Gladwell inexplicably grants her a pseudonym) was a suburban Washington, D.C., straight-A high school student who wanted to pursue a science career. Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights tactics help illustrate how the powerful can fall victim to 'trickster heroes.' Former Pro-Bowl 49ers running back Roger Craig, for example, makes a brief appearance as an assistant coach of an unlikely seventh- and eighth-grade girls basketball juggernaut, and Dr. The author cleverly assembles a broad range of personalities to explore these ideas. 'And the fact of being an underdog can change people in ways that we often fail to appreciate.' 'The same qualities that appear to give strength are often the sources of great weakness,' Gladwell writes. It argues that 'much of what we consider valuable in our world arises' when we're faced with impossible odds, and it challenges the way we perceive the advantages and disadvantages that dictate those odds. 'David and Goliath' is a lean, consuming read. A 'typical stone hurled by an expert slinger at a distance of thirty-five meters would have hit Goliath's head with a velocity of thirty-four meters per second,' an Israeli Defense Forces ballistics expert tells Gladwell, 'more than enough to penetrate his skull and render him unconscious or dead.' David, in other words, brought a gun to a sword fight. His humble sling was a devastating weapon. Gladwell claims David had a lot more than a rock and divine providence on his side that day. But as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his provocative new book, 'David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants,' it was the favorite who walked away with a victory.

Sure, when the Israelite shepherd boy squared off against that Philistine warrior giant 3,000 years ago in the Valley of Elah, one appeared to be a doomed underdog and the other a clear favorite. You think you know the story of David and Goliath, but think again. By Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown 305 pages $29)

The art of battling giants