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Tom Nichols – The Death of Expertise | Review

Title: The Death of Expertise

Author: Tom Nichols

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count: 254

Rating: 4.5/5

This is easily one of the best non-fiction books that I’ve picked up this year and so I was a very happy bunny. It’s also pretty cool because it was recommended to me by one of my clients, to the point at which he paid for me to purchase a copy of it.

It’s basically all about the way in which everyone thinks they’re an expert today. We overrule doctors because we can Google our symptoms, but we also overrule experts in their different fields instead of taking their hard earned advice.

This is a huge problem, of course, but it’s even more of a problem in the midst of a global pandemic when people are convincing themselves that there’s some sort of secret conspiracy to deprive us all of our liberty by getting us to wear masks in shops. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I found this book more enjoyable than I normally would have because of the time in which I read it.

Arguably my favourite example in the whole book was that of American attitudes towards military action in Ukraine. It turns out that the less people knew about the Ukraine, the more likely they were to demand military action. Those who thought it was in Australia or South America were those who were most likely to support military involvement. What a world, man.

Learn more about The Death of Expertise.

Malcolm Gladwell – Blink | Review

Title: Blink

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 280

Rating: 10/10

Malcolm Gladwell – Blink

This book was actually incredible; mind-blowing, even. It was also my first Malcolm Gladwell book, and you can colour me impressed – I thought it was excellent, and I’m already putting some of its lessons into practice, and some of them were even things that I’d subconsciously (ha!) adopted.

The idea here is simple to grasp and difficult to master – essentially, we must learn to harness our gut feelings, but only in certain circumstances. Sometimes, our gut feeling is right; at other times, it’s as wrong as when white cops shoot an unarmed black guy because they mistook his wallet for a gun. But the thing is, you can train yourself to ignore extraneous stimuli, and to make quick, snap decisions using only the information that you need, like when doctors determine whether someone is having a heart attack right in the here and now, rather than based upon a lifetime of risk factors.

It’s hard to classify this – is it a business book, or is it a book on psychology? Perhaps it’s both, and who cares? Either way, it’s a great read to expand your horizons and to learn new things about how we act, as a species. Plus, if you’re trying to sell a product or a service, there are plenty of useful lessons too, like how blind taste tests don’t always work, and how packaging can change our first impressions of things, and therefore our attitudes towards the product. It’s compelling, it’s cleverly written, and somehow, despite being about a non-fictional subject, it’s a lot of fun. Great work, Malcolm Gladwell.