Borders Book Group

Malcolm Gladwell provides an overview on the phenomenon of social epidemics - the underlying reasons that make things tip into popularity. The Tipping Point provides a way of interpreting what factors have contributed to a certain epidemic or trend.

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of mimetics will recognise this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.