Talking to Strangers
What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
Book Information:
On Sale: September 10, 2019
416 pages
ISBN-13: 139780316478526
Buy now:
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers—and why they often go wrong.
A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true?
Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt.
Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
Praise
“Talking to Strangers is a must-read…I love this book… Reading it will actually change not just how you see strangers, but how you look at yourself, the news–the world…Reading this book changed me.”
Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine
“Powerful advice on truly getting to know others…Gladwell brilliantly argues that we should stop assuming, realize no one’s transparent and understand that behavior is tied to unseen circumstances.”
People, Book of the Week
“Gladwell has again delivered a compelling, conversation-starting read…At a time when the world feels intractably polarized, a book examining the varying ways we misinterpret or fail to communicate with one another could not feel more necessary…With a mix of reporting, research and a deft narrative hand, Gladwell illuminates these examples with the page-turning urgency of a paperback thriller.”
Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times
What’s Inside
INTRODuction
“Step out of the car!”
1.
In July 2015, a young African American woman named Sandra Bland drove from her hometown of Chicago to a little town an hour west of Houston, Texas. She was interviewing for a job at Prairie View A&M University, the school she’d graduated from a few years before. She was tall and striking, with a personality to match. She belonged to the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in college, and played in the marching band. She volunteered with a seniors group. She regularly posted short, inspirational videos on YouTube, under the handle “Sandy Speaks,” that often began, “Good morning, my beautiful Kings and Queens.”
I am up today just praising God, thanking His name. Definitely thanking Him not just because it’s my birthday, but thanking Him for growth, thanking Him for the different things that He has done in my life over this past year. Just looking back at the twenty-eight years I have been on this earth, and all that He has shown me. Even though I have made some mistakes, I have definitely messed up, He still loves me, and I want to let my Kings and Queens know out there that He still loves you too.
Bland got the job at Prairie View. She was elated. Her plan was to get a master’s degree in political science on the side. On the afternoon of July 10 she left the university to get groceries, and as she made a right turn onto the highway that rings the Prairie View campus, she was pulled over by a police officer. His name was Brian Encinia: white, short dark hair, thirty years old. He was courteous-at least at first. He told her that she had failed to signal a lane change. He asked her questions. She answered them. Then Bland lit a cigarette, and Encinia asked her to put it out.
Their subsequent interaction was recorded by the video camera on his dashboard, and has been viewed in one form or another several million times on YouTube.
Bland: I’m in my car, why do I have to put out my cigarette?
Encinia: Well, you can step on out now.
Bland: I don’t have to step out of my car.
Encinia: Step out of the car.
Bland: Why am I…
Encinia: Step out of the car!
Bland: No, you don’t have the right. No, you don’t have the right.
Encinia: Step out of the car.
Bland: You do not have the right. You do not have the right to do this.
Encinia: I do have the right, now step out or I will remove you.
Bland: I refuse to talk to you other than to identify myself. [crosstalk] I am getting removed for a failure to signal?
Encinia: Step out or I will remove you. I’m giving you a lawful order. Get out of the car now or I’m going to remove you.
