Malcolm Gladwell focuses on minor geniuses and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways
all of us organize experience in this delightful (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from
The New Yorker.What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of
varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about
how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century? In the
past decade Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we
understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point Blink and Outliers. Now in What the
Dog Saw he brings together for the first time the best of his writing from The New Yorker
over the same period. Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill
and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron
Popeil the king of the American kitchen as he sells rotisserie ovens and divines the secrets
of Cesar Millan the dog whisperer who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He
explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and hindsight bias and why it was that
everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate. Good
writing Gladwell says in his preface does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability
to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you to make you
think to give you a glimpse into someone else's head. What the Dog Saw is yet another example
of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most
brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.
