In Brooklyn, Malcolm Gladwell dissects ‘David and Goliath’
Brooklyn BookBeat: Author spoke, signed books in Park Slope
Most of us know the story of David and Goliath as it’s traditionally told: shepherd boy David, in spite of his comparatively diminutive stature and seemingly inferior weaponry, manages to defeat the giant Goliath when the two engage in battle. Simply put, as bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell writes in his latest book, the tale has long served “as a metaphor for improbable victory.”
But Gladwell’s book, titled “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants” (Little, Brown and Company), challenges this traditional analysis of the story. As Gladwell told a crowd in Park Slope on Thursday, he was moved to write this book because “as a kid you identify with [David] in a way, so [the story] was always in the back of my mind.” Upon further examination, Gladwell said, he realized the story is much more complicated than it seems at first glance.
Gladwell spoke at Congregation Beth Elohim at a ‘Brooklyn By The Book’ event, co-hosted by Community Bookstore and the Brooklyn Public Library. Community Bookstore and the Congregation, two Park Slope institutions, partnered to create the wildly popular series in fall 2012.