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    The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple.  It is that the best way to
    understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter,
    the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the
    phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday
    life is to think of them as epidemics.  Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just
    like viruses do.

    ...

    [T]hree characteristics--one contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and
    three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment--are the...three principles that
    define how measles moves through a grade-school classroom or the flu attacks every winter.  Of the
    three, the third trait--the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment--is the most
    important, because it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest
    insight into why modern change happens the way it does.  The name given to that one dramatic
    moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point.
        -Malcolm Gladwell, Introduction to The Tipping Point

Though this epidemic metaphor of Malcolm Gladwell's is interesting and offers a new, and somewhat helpful,  perspective for considering human behavior, it is ultimately pretty circular and of rather severely limited utility.  Similarly, though much of what Gladwell has to say in the book is fresh and on first glance exciting, upon further consideration many of his claims fall flat.  In particular, his seeming desire to offer a third way of looking at human behavior, neither conservative, with its emphasis on morality, nor liberal, with its emphasis on material conditions, fails miserably as one section after another of the book confirms conservative dogma.

Gladwell's basic argument, deficient analysis, and unintentional confirmation of conservatism are evident in his discussion of how New York City broke its crime epidemic.  He first charts the explosive growth of crime in the City and the nearly primitive conditions it created, culminating in the Berhard Goetz incident, with an otherwise model citizen forced to take the law into his own hands and receiving the approval of a jury for his action.  By 1992 there were 2,154 murders and over 600,000 serious crimes in one year in New York City.  But then crime begin to fall precipitously, with murder falling by 60+ percent and all serious crime by over 50%.  The epidemic had hit one of Gladwell's Tipping Points, but why ?

Gladwell hypothesizes that there are basically three rules which govern these idea epidemics :

    * The Law of the Few : that a few key individuals are generally responsible for most of the spread
        of the idea.

    * The Stickiness Factor : "...that there are specific ways of making a contagious message
        memorable..."

    * The Power of Context : "that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than
        they may seem."

He argues that the drop in crime is especially a result of the Power of Context, and in particular of the imposition of "Broken Windows Policing."  The basic concept here (first outlined by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, in a 1982 piece for Atlantic Monthly) is that when people live in neighborhoods where even the windows are broken, they receive the implicit message that societal constraints have ceased to function.  In this situation they will naturally feel less constrained themselves, with the likelihood that crime will be more prevalent.  Thus, on the New York City Subways, where cars were coated with graffiti, had no heat or air conditioning and where fare dodging was prevalent, a general sense of lawlessness took over and fed a rising tide of crime.

David Gunn, head of the New York City Transit System, hired George Kelling and put Wilson and Kelling's theory to the test.  They first attacked the graffiti problem, eventually reaching a point where trains weren't allowed to ride the line if they had been tagged.  Several years later, William Bratton was hired as head of the transit police and the department went after fare dodgers with a vengeance, frequently finding that those they arrested had other outstanding violations and crimes to their names.  Soon, not just these crimes, but all crime on the transit system began to plummet.

Gladwell correctly notes that by changing several relatively minor facets of their law enforcement strategy the Transit system reaped huge rewards.  However, his overall argument has several weaknesses.  It helps to describe what happened, but isn't terribly useful for understanding what happened.  First, while these changes were important, the drop in crime in New York City, and nationwide, also coincided with a twenty year economic boom, natural aging of the population, "three strikes and your out" legislation, a massive prison building effort, and several well publicized police brutality cases in which jurors refused to convict the officers.  It is impossible to scientifically assign responsibility to each of these diverse elements and say, factor X caused 40% of the drop, or whatever.  We certainly can't look at this complex series of events and say, as Gladwell does because he wants his idea to have social utility : James Q. Wilson, George L. Kelling, Rudy Guliani, David Gunn, and William Bratton pushed the crime epidemic to the Tipping Point by resorting to Broken Window Policing.  Gladwell's problem here is the same as that which has plagued intellectuals, and through them the rest of us, since time immemorial, the belief that a few people with a good idea can effect precise changes on the rest of the population.  Life just doesn't work that way (see Orrin's review of The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek).

Second, Gladwell's thesis is not testable.  In order to show that Broken Window Policing caused the epidemic to tip, you would have to find a city with similar problems and attempt it as the only solution.  But, of course, a city in the grip of such a reign of crime is hardly likely to settle for such a minimalist response.  The fact that the entire nation has simultaneously experienced a decline in crime, though New York's has probably been the most dramatic, also serves to cast doubt on his premise.

Meanwhile, Gladwell is so intent on appearing iconoclastic and to differentiate himself and his theories from classical categories of liberalism and conservatism that he puts a spin on his notions that the facts do not bear out.  Thus, in his analysis of why Broken Windows Policing worked, he says that the Power of Context suggests :

    ...that the criminal--far from being someone who acts for fundamental, intrinsic reasons and who
    lives in his own world--is actually someone acutely sensitive to his environment, who is alert to all
    kinds of cues, and who is prompted to commit crimes based on his perception of the world around
    him.  That is an incredibly radical--and in some sense unbelievable--idea.  The Power of Context is
    an environmental idea.  It says that behavior is a function of social context.  ...  Guliani and
    Bratton--far from being conservatives, as they are commonly identified--actually represent on the
    question of crime the most extreme liberal position imaginable, a position so extreme that it is
    almost impossible to accept.

This statement is either disingenuous or ignorant.  Liberals and conservatives both argue that the social environment is the key to human behavior, but are divided over whether the economic environment (liberals) or the moral environment (conservatives) is more important.  As mentioned earlier, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that these have been economic boom times, so the liberals should be able to claim at least a little vindication, that rising incomes have reduced crime.  However, let us accept Gladwell's position for a moment, that Broken Windows Policing is the single most important factor--the Tipping Point.  It is also, indisputably, a matter of changing the moral environment,  As such it was propounded by conservatives, implemented by conservatives, and today--when, despite its manifest success, it is under attack from the Left because it is supposedly too absolutist and brutal--is defended almost exclusively by conservatives.

It is at least arguable that Broken Windows Policing demonstrates that the entire conservative attack on Modernity is absolutely correct.  The conservative critique, in its simplest most classical form, maintains that the moral relativism which intellectual elites have foisted upon Western Civilization over the last century or more has led to a steady decline in the quality of that civilization.  The debilitation, delegitimization, and even destruction of Judeo-Christian morality and of various social institutions has led to any number of social pathologies, not least among them the extraordinarily high crime rates in the West.  Liberalism, with its modern basis in Marxist materialism, places its emphasis
on Man's financial well being.  It assumes that all of society's problems are a result of too low
standards of living and too great income disparities.  But the 20th Century effectively disproved their
case.  Despite the greatest rise in standards of living in human history, social behavior, rather than
improving, declined to Hobbesian levels.  Obviously wealth has fairly little to do with it.

The standard liberal response to crime has always been to spend more money.  Raise welfare payments, increase the minimum wage, hire more cops, fund midnight basketball, etc., etc., etc....  Conservatives have always insisted on law and order.  As James Q. Wilson has said of Broken Windows Policing :

    ...the most important requirement is to think that to maintain order in precarious situations is a vital
    job.

Why then does Gladwell think that conservatives would be surprised when imposing order leads to huge social benefits ?  Liberals love to scoff at the conservative "slippery slope" argument; the example of New York City would seem to prove it, by reversing the process.  Take even the most minor seeming moral transgressions seriously and soon the major ones will be effected too.  Guliani and Bratton don't represent extreme liberalism; they represent entirely traditional conservatism

Another section of the book, where Gladwell tries to be more specific about why things tip, ends up being unintentionally humorous.  He says that one of the things that makes a fad take hold is the "stickiness" of the idea behind it.  He discusses this stickiness factor in the context of children's television.  He starts with Sesame Street, which was apparently developed to conform to every single inane child rearing and educational theory that had been dreamed up at the time of its creation.  The show was then rigorously test marketed to kids to see of the theories worked.  It will come as no surprise that they turned out to be mostly wrong.  For instance, in the initial versions they segregated humans from the Muppets, having been told that children could not separate fantasy from reality.  This would surely have been news to Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Stan Lee.  So then they showed the program to kids and found that they only paid attention when the Muppets were on screen and completely ignored the segments with live actors.  Duh?  Or take the creators of Blue's Clues, who had the revolutionary insight that they could just take one episode of the show and then broadcast it every day for a week, because--are you ready for this ?--kids don't mind repetition.  In fact, they like it and learn better from it.  Have any of these people ever had a kid ?  Do you know a kid who doesn't want to read the same book over and over and over again?  Here again, this cutting edge, revolutionary, radical, whatever you care to call it, social science merely proves that the traditional intuition of conservatives is right : we've done things the same way for thousands of years because they work, and no half-baked theories dreamed up by a bunch of pointy headed intellectuals in a lab are likely to improve upon them.

But these objections to the Tipping Point idea pale in comparison to its most fundamental problem.  As a general matter Gladwell's Tipping Point idea, like Darwin's idea of Evolution, is grounded more in literary metaphor than in science.  If you ask, as Gladwell does, why Hush Puppies suddenly became fashionable again after years of declining or stagnant sales, the answer must be that they hit a Tipping Point.  If you ask why they stayed unpopular for so long, the answer must be there were no Tipping Points during that time.  Why did the book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood become a best seller, while Rebecca Wells's previous books hadn't, or other (better) novels didn't ?  One hit a Tipping Point, the others didn't.  But this doesn't really add anything to our understanding of the human behavior and desires that fueled the crazes nor does it help us to determine how to tip other products and processes in the future.  Gladwell's argument, like all pseudoscience, is a closed loop--if something tips then it hit a Tipping Point; if it doesn't, then it didn't.  Rather than explaining what happened, the metaphor, once accepted, stifles intelligent analysis.  The fact that something happened comes to seem a sufficient explanation and a justification for saying that the process occurred; the actual elements of this theoretical process need never be demonstrated, nor tested; it's as if the circular beauty of the metaphor precludes questioning its validity.

One final quarrel, the big attention grabbing application of his ideas here is that since most cigarette smokers get hooked as youths, and the young seem to react with predictable rebelliousness to adult messages that smoking is dangerous, Gladwell proposes a simple reduction in the nicotine levels of cigarettes as a way of preventing addiction.  This is a fine, predictably technocratic, remedy.  But as the book has accidentally shown, old-fashioned absolutist morality seems to work best.  Rather than attempting a solution which accepts the teenagers law breaking, how about this ?  Kids seem to start smoking mostly because they think it makes them cool.  But what is the pinnacle of cool for teenagers ?  Driving a car.  Why not just deny a drivers license to anyone who gets caught smoking before they are 21.  I'm just not seeing a whole lot of kids who are willing to act the hoodlum at the cost of riding Shank's mare, are you?

I don't mean to dismiss the book out of hand.  The Tipping Point metaphor is thought provoking and there's a lot of other interesting stuff here.  Just don't take the premise too seriously; it's more an artistic tool than a scientific theory.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (C+)


Websites:

See also:

Malcolm Gladwell (2 books reviewed)
Sociology
Malcolm Gladwell Links:

    -AUTHOR SITE: Gladwell.com
    -BOOK SITE: Outliers (Gladwell.com)
    -WIKIPEDIA: Outliers
    -EXCERPT: First Chapter of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
    -VIDEO ESSAY: Malcolm Gladwell On Success (Malcolm Gladwell, 12.02.08, Forbes)
    -VIDEO ESSAY: Malcolm Gladwell: Practice Makes Perfect (Malcolm Gladwell, 12.02.08, Forbes)
    -EXCERPT: from Outliers: The 10,000 Hour Rule
    -
   
-
   
-ESSAY: The Uses of Adversity: Can underprivileged outsiders have an advantage? (Malcolm Gladwell, November 10, 2008, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: Late Bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity? (Malcolm Gladwell, October 20, 2008, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare? (Malcolm Gladwell, May 12, 2008, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: None of the Above: What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race. (Malcolm Gladwell, December 17, 2007, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: Game Theory: When it comes to athletic prowess, don't believe your eyes. (Malcolm Gladwell, May 29, 2006, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: Getting In: The social logic of Ivy League admissions. (Malcolm Gladwell, October 10, 2005, The New Yorker)
   -ESSAY: CONNECTING THE DOTS: The paradoxes of intelligence reform (MALCOLM GLADWELL, 2003-03-10, The New Yorker)
    -PROFILE: Malcolm Gladwell: 'I was an outsider many times over': As the author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers goes on UK tour, he discusses what turned him into a bestseller (Naomi Wolf, 6/06/09, Times of London)
    -PROFILE: Tipping tea with Malcolm Gladwell Tom Leonard, 18 Nov 2008, Daily Telegraph
    -PROFILE: The Accidental Guru: Malcolm Gladwell, says one fan, is "just a thinker." But what a thinker. His provocative ideas are taking the business world by storm. So who is this guy, and what can he teach you about business? (Danielle Sacks, Dec 19, 2007, Fast Company)
    -PROFILE: Geek Pop Star: Malcolm Gladwell’s elegant and wildly popular theories about modern life have turned his name into an adjective—Gladwellian! But in his new book, he seeks to undercut the cult of success, including his own, by explaining how little control we have over it. (Jason Zengerle, Nov 9, 2008, New York)
    -PROFILE: Malcolm Gladwell's 'Success' defines 'outlier' achievement (Deirdre Donahue, 11/28/08, USA TODAY)
    -ESSAY: Gladwell vs. Gladwell (DAN MITCHELL, March 4, 2006, NY Times)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ (Tom Ashbrook, 11/20/08, On Point Radio)
    -INTERVIEW: Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell (Jeff Merron, December 8, 2008, ESPN)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: 'Outliers' Puts Self-Made Success To The Test (All Things Considered, 11/20/08)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: The Tipping Point (Talk of the Nation, 3/02/2000)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Difference Between a Think and a 'Blink' (Talk of the Nation, 1/11/05)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: 'Blink': The Power of Impulse and Intuition (Allison Keyes, 1/12/05, NPR)
    -VIDEO INTERVIEW: Outliers (Charlie Rose, 12/19/08)
    -ARCHIVES: Malcolm Gladwell (NY Times)
    -
   
-REVIEW: of Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (David Leonhardt, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (David Brooks, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Joseph Epstein, Weekly Standard
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Brian C. Anderson, Commentary)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Isaac Chotiner, The New Republic)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Peter A. Coclanis, Open Letters)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Michael Maiello, Forbes)
    -BOOK CLUB: for Outliers (Edward Tenner & John Horgan, Nov. 13, 2008, Slate)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Jay Walljasper, Ode)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Louis Bayard, Salon)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Lev Grossman, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Business Week)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (David A. Shaywitz, WSJ)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Boyd Tonkin, Independent)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Kevin Jackson, Times of London)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Jason Cowley, The Observer)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Danielle Sacks, Fast Company)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Kai-Ming Cha, Playboy)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Ellen Snortland, Huffington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Howard Gardner, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (David Hinckley, NY Daily News)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Robert Colvile, Daily Telegraph)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Jennifer Reingold, Fortune)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Matt Asay, CNET)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Heller McAlpin, CS Monitor)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Ed Smith, Daily Telegraph)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Leslie McDowell, The Independent)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Nav Purewal, PopMatters)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (AC Grayling, Times of London)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Jonah Raskin, SF Chronicle)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Rebecca Steinitz, Boston Globe)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (John T. Slania, BookPage)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Claude S. Fischer, Boston Review)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (AH Goldstein, Rocky Mountain News)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (James Woudhuysen and Para Mullan, Spiked)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Desiree Gonzalez, News & Review)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Sabitri Ghosh, Globe & Mail)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Mary Ann Gwinn, Seattle Times)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Fred Krone, Helium)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Andrew Robinson, New Scientist)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Fred Hahn, The Examiner)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (PD Smith, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers ( Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (R. Stephen Prather, Better World)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers (Joanne McNeil, Washington Times)
    -REVIEW: of Outliers ()
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: for Outliers (Reviews of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (David Brooks, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Blink (Janet Maslin, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of
   
-REVIEW: of Blink (Steve Sailer, V-Dare)

Book-related and General Links:
    -Malcolm Gladwell (Author's Web Site)
    -The New Yorker
    -BOOK SITE : The Tipping Point (FSB Associates)
    -ESSAY : DEPT. OF DISPUTATION : The Tipping Point : Why is the city suddenly so much safer--could it be that crime really is an epidemic? (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker)
    -EXCERPT : Chapter One of The Tipping Point : The Three Rules of Epidemics
    -EXCERPT : How to start an epidemic :  Where does a craze come from? Why does one  idea succeed and another flop? Malcolm Gladwell  pinpoints the little things that spark cataclysmic changes
    -EXCERPT : Why Paul Revere's Message Stuck : A case study in word-of-mouth epidemics
    -AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY : Lost in the Middle  (Malcolm Gladwell, Washington Post Magazine)
    -ARTICLE : Man Charged in Bombing of New York Skyscrapers (Malcolm Gladwell, The Washington Post)
    -ARTICLE : Dow Corning Papers Show Fears of Implant Problems (Malcolm Gladwell, The Washington Post)
    -ARTICLE : Police recover gun du Pont allegedly used (DALE RUSSAKOFF and Malcolm Gladwell, The Washington Post)
    -ESSAY ARCHIVE : Malcom Gladwell at The New Yorker
    -ESSAY : ANNALS OF EATING : The Trouble with Fries : Fast food is killing us.  Can it be fixed? (The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY : The Science of Shopping:   The American Shopper has never been so fickle. What
are stores, including the new flagship designer boutiques, doing about it? Applying science. (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker)
    -AUDIO ESSAY : ANNALS OF BEHAVIOR: DO PARENTS MATTER? So much for "nature vs. nurture": According to a bold new theory, psychology has missed what really shapes our children. (Malcolm Gladwell, 1998 The New Yorker Magazine)
    -DEBATE : Health Care Forum :  Canada Vs. U.S.  (Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell, washington Monthly)
    -REVIEW : Feb 24, 2000 Malcolm Gladwell: True Grit, NY Review of Books
       Think Like a Champion by Mike Shanahan and with Adam Schefter
       Rockne of Notre Dame: The Making of a Football Legend by Ray Robinson
       When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss
    -REVIEW : Dec 17, 1998 Malcolm Gladwell: Just Say 'Wait a Minute', NY Review of Books
       The Fix by Michael Massing
       Drug Crazy: How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out by Mike Gray
    -REVIEW : of The Street Lawyer by John Grisham (Malcolm Gladwell, Slate)
    -INTERVIEW : with Malcolm Gladwell (Atlantic Monthly)
    -INTERVIEW :  with  Malcolm Gladwell (Book Browse)
    -INTERVIEW: with Malcolm Gladwell (Amazon.com)
    -INTERVIEW : with Malcolm Gladwell (Michael Cromartie, Christianity Today)
    -INTERVIEW :  Malcolm Gladwell talks about his book which examines the little things that change our lives (Online Newshour, PBS)
    -INTERVIEW : Q&A: Malcolm Gladwell on the effectiveness of Net ads (Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Malcolm Gladwell seeks the tipping point for today's trends (Infoculture, CBC)
    -INTERVIEW : Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point (Jeff Stryker for HIV InSite. April 2000)
    -INTERVIEW : with Malcolm Gladwell (Merchants of Cool, PBS)
    -INTERVIEW : with Malcolm Gladwell (Steven Johnson, Feed)
    -INTERVIEW : with Malcolm Gladwell : A nice know-it-all (Globe Books)
    -INTERVIEW : RE: Malcolm Gladwell : Steven Johnson talks with Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell about epidemics, teen smoking, crime waves, and why Rudy Giuliani is a closet radical. (FEED)
    -CHAT : Reaching the `Tipping Point' :  Author Malcolm Gladwell Discusses the Origin of Trends (ABCnews.com)
    -CHAT : Malcolm Gladwell (CNN)
    -PROFILE : For New Yorker Writer, the Web is a Petri Dish (ALEX KUCZYNSKI, March 20, 2000, NY Times)
    -ARCHIVES : Malcolm Gladwell (Slate)
    -ARCHIVES : Malcolm Gladwell (Mag Portal)
    -ARCHIVES : Malcolm Gladwell (NY Review of Books)
    -ARCHIVES : Gladwell (Salon)
    -ARCHIVES : "malcolm gladwell" (Find Articles)
    -BOOK CLUB : This week, a discussion of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (Slate)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. By Malcolm Gladwell (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,, NY Times)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. By Malcolm Gladwell (Alan Wolfe, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : Jun 15, 2000 Andrew Hacker: Back to Nature, NY Review of Books
       The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs
       The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Walter Kirn, New York)
    -REVIEW : of THE TIPPING POINT: How Little Things Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (Nathan Glazer, Wilson Quarterly)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Sandra Dallas, Denver Post)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Gavin McNett, Salon)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Ben Rogers, booksonline uk)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Damian Thompson, booksonline uk)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Stephen Bayley. The Observer)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (J.M. Bridgeman, January Magazine)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Fab Time)
    -REVIEW : Tipping Point (David Smillie, Book Ideas)
    -REVIEW :  of The Tipping Point (PAT ST. GERMAIN -- Winnipeg Sun)
    -REVIEW :  of The Tipping Point (WAYNE JANES,   Toronto Sun)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point  (ELIZA R. L. MCGRAW , Book Page)
    -REVIEW :  of The Tipping Point (Richard Kahlenberg, Intellectual Capital)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point  (William Sheridan, The Thinking Person's Portal)
    -REVIEW :  of The Tipping Point (Alex F. Rubalcava, Harvard Political Review)
    -REVIEW : Tipping Point (Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Cristina Odone, New Statesman)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Richard Lacayo, TIME)
    -REVIEW : of The Tipping Point (Diane Brady, Business Week)
    -REVIEW : The Tipping Point (Allen Smalling, New City Chicago)

BROKEN WINDOW POLICING :
    -Manhattan Institute
    -City Journal
    -ESSAY : Broken Windows : The police and neighborhood safety (James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, 1982, Atlantic Monthly)
    -EXCERPT : Fixing Broken Windows  Foreword by James Q. Wilson (O1/97, Atlantic Monthly)
    -Interview: James Q. Wilson (Acton Institute)
    -REVIEW : of Moral Judgment by renowned social scientist James Q. Wilson (Brian Anderson, Intellectual Capital)
    -DISCUSSION : The Promise of Public Order : George L. Kelling and Catherine M. Coles discuss what must be done to restore order and reduce crime in America (January 1997, Atlantic Monthly)
    -DISCSUSSION : ìBroken Windowsî Probation:  The Next Step in Fighting Crimeî New York City,  August 19, 1999 (Manhattan Institute)
    -ESSAY : The Contribution of Broken Windows Theory to Crime Prevention (Deedra Kunst, Word Archive)
    -ESSAY : B I G A P P L E P I E : With his election in the bag, Rudy Giuliani needs to worry about the future. (RICHARD BROOKHISER , National Review)
    -ESSAY : Rudy Awakening : Giuliani fights his enemies--and himself (Fred Siegel, 4/99, New Republic)
    -ESSAY : Brutal verdict : Behind the acquittal of four officers is a clear indictment of standard police procedure in Giuliani's New York. (Bruce Shapiro, Salon)
    -ESSAY : The trouble with Rudy :  REACTION TO THE KILLING OF AN AFRICAN STREET VENDOR BY POLICE SHOWS THE GROWING PROTEST POWER OF THE CITY'S IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES (NEAL POLLACK, Salon)
    -ESSAY : GOOD COP, BAD COP :  HEADLINES ABOUT BRUTALITY HAVE OVERSHADOWED THE REAL NEWS: MORE CITIES ARE REINING IN POLICE MISBEHAVIOR (RICHARD LACAYO , SEPTEMBER 1, 1997, TIME)
    -ESSAY : Does policing really reduce crime? (George Will, August 1999)
    -ESSAY : Bad Cop, Good Cops (The New Republic, September 8, 1997 )
    -ESSAY : Policing the Police (David C. Anderson, Jan 1999, The American Prospect)
    -ESSAY : Crazed Cops or Fallen Heroes ? (Counter Punch)
    -ESSAY : Keys to Success for AMERICA'S CITIES (Paul Helmke, USA Today Magazine, November 1998)
    -ESSAY : Poking Holes in the Theory of 'Broken Windows' : Many scholars say an influential idea about crime rests on dubious assumptions and minimal research (D.W. MILLER, February 9, 2001, Chronicle of Higher Education)
    -COLLOQUY : Is the "broken windows" theory of crime responsible for helping police forces in many cities to cut crime rates? Or has new research pointed to flaws in the theory? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
    -ESSAY : CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO CRIMELESSNESS (Chuck Colson, Connection)
    -ESSAY : Only in New York? (Arianna Huffington, June 9, 1998)
    -ESSAY : Where did crime go? (Seattle Times, May 10, 2000)
    -ARTICLE : Treating social ills as epidemic (South Coast Today, 6/1/97)
    -ARTICLE : City grows while slayings shrink : The boomtown that is Las Vegas is seeing a marked drop in killings (Joe Schoenmann, December 09, 1998, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
    -INTERVIEW :  American Cities in the 21st Century : "Safer Cities"   (CityScape, July 28, 2000)
    -REVIEW : of Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic by William Bratton (Joe Diamond, Intellectual Capital)
    -INTERVIEW : with William Bratton (On Patrol)
    -REVIEW : of New York Murder Mystery by Andrew Karmen (Stephanie Mencimer, Washington Monthly)
    -REVIEW : of Sidewalk by Mitchell Duneier (Amy Waldman, Washington Monthly)
    -REVIEW ESSAY : Looking at the Future of America's Urban Life (Michael Corbin , Baltimore City Paper)