When pop history bombs: a response to Malcolm Gladwell
I quite like Malcolm Gladwell. Here&#x27;s why:<p>I view empirical truth as having layers. There is one objective truth, of course, but there are higher-order concentric rings of abstractions above those that aren&#x27;t strictly true but serve as an accurate enough first-order approximation of the truth.<p>The clichéd example of this would be the Bohr model of atoms being the first &quot;ring&quot; of truth, and quantum mechanics being a second or third &quot;ring&quot;. Another example would be &quot;everything revolves around the earth&quot; -&gt; &quot;everything revolves around the sun&quot; -&gt; &quot;Newtonian gravity&quot; -&gt; &quot;Einsteinian general relativity&quot;.<p>As a first-order approximation of the truth, Gladwell is fine. There are serious criticisms of him in this article that may cause me to rethink this, but as long as they aren&#x27;t full-on manipulations of reality, I view them as a useful entry point into a subject.<p>Nuanced and rigorous history requires careful and objective study to truly understand. Gladwell, on the other hand, I can read in the bathtub with a cold beer. He&#x27;s fun in a way that the more academic approach to history necessarily can&#x27;t be (unless there is a Feynman-esque character writing history books that I&#x27;m not aware of?)