In one example that should surprise everyone, the very real benefits reaped from reducing class sizes from 30 or 40 to 20-odd, start to reverse once the class goes down to around 12 or less. In the US, salaries of more than $50,000 a year translate into little increase in happiness and actively turn into a disadvantage as they increase further: incredible wealth tends to decrease happiness.

These are things, like money, that are assumed to get better the more you have but that in fact, beyond a certain point, show diminishing advantage. Gladwell introduces us to the idea of inverted U-curves. Let’s start with assets that turn into liabilities. It means we underestimate how much freedom there can be in what looks like a disadvantage.' It turns out that many of the things we put in the asset and liability columns of life’s balance sheet should be swapped. It means that we misread battles between underdogs and giants. And what happens as a result? It means that we make mistakes. The book is about the unseen disadvantages of presumed advantages and the surprising advantages of seeming disadvantages.Īs Gladwell puts it: 'We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is – and the definition isn’t right. ‘Things are never as good or as bad as they seem’ could have been an alternative title for this collection of topsy-turvy tales that give hope and guidance to entrepreneurs, challenger brands, campaigners, reformers, minorities and underdogs everywhere. It turns out the innocent shepherd was a highly trained sling-shot specialist, who effectively brought a gun to a knife fight with an old man with giantism, who saw double, could hardly move and whom he shot in the forehead from a safe distance. In the book’s opening, Gladwell turns on its head the classic story of the diminutive, unprotected and almost unarmed David triumphing against all the odds versus the gargantuan, heavily armoured and armed Goliath. It’s full of clever contrarian wisdom told through compelling stories of interesting people’s lives, interwoven with ‘now we know differently’ scientific evidence. Everyone loves an underdog and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants is classic Malcolm Gladwell.

David and goliath underdogs misfits