What the Dog Saw

I went on a binge a while ago and read all of Malcolm Gladwell’s books available at the time. They’re all pop-science pieces on sociological/psychological matters, with really spectacular breadth and readability. The only big downside is that they tend to have glaring issues with correlation v. causation and statistical rigor, which make some of the conclusions he draws a little irritating, and more than a little suspect. I enjoyed all three, so I was pretty excited when I heard he was coming out with something new.

A friend bought me a copy of his new book, What the Dog Saw: and Other Adventures earlier in the break, and I devoured it in a couple of sittings, finishing up earlier today.

What the Dog Saw is a little different than his previous books; instead of having a central topic, it is simply a collection of 19 articles he wrote for the New Yorker, broken into three loosely themed sections. Interestingly, all the articles used in the book are available in an archive on his website (along with many others), so the book is more of a convenient selection than a sole source. This decision may be an experiment to see if free availability affects sales; based on some other authors who have performed similar experiments, it probably won’t, and may actually boost sales as people get hooked and decide they would rather not read the whole thing off a screen.

In my opinion two of the articles stand out above the rest; John Rock’s Error, which discusses the public health implications of some strange decisions by birth control pioneers and Million-Dollar Murray, which discusses fundamental issues with the way social service issues are handled. The other thing I really enjoyed is that reading through the set, a large number of the articles work together to form a ringing and very thorough condemnation of the goals and methods of modern business culture, from risk perception, analysis and handling, to hiring practices, which agree with my feelings on the matter (feelings which form a part of my inclination to remain in academia on a permanent basis).

The book is both better and worse for lacking a central theme; worse in that it doesn’t have the depth of the earlier books, better in that it avoids the overwrought, dubiously justified conclusions that made the last bit of each of its predecessors painful to read. Not an extraordinary book, but fun, and way better for you than reading more Internet garbage. Certainly worth reading (as are his other three) if one has the time.