Title:

Talking to Strangers

Author:

Malcolm Gladwell

Category:

Non-fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

September 4, 2025

alking to Strangers was written by Malcolm Gladwell, so you know it will interesting, filled with information and details that you cannot wait to tell someone else. Gladwell covers a lot of ground in this book: Bernie Madoff (swindler), Amanda Knox (accused of murder in Italy), Jerry Sandusky (Penn State coach who molested young boys), Sandra Bland (dead in a Texas jail a couple of days after being arrested for a routine traffic stop) and CIA spies (Aldrich Ames was actually working for the Russians!) - and much more. I had heard of all of these people, but Gladwell provides details that I did not know, broadening my understanding of what happened in those cases.

The book begins by asking the question: why are humans so bad at detecting when others are lying to us? Why did Neville Chamberlain trust Hitler? How did the CIA get completely duped by the Cuban counter-intelligence agency such that every operative that the CIA thought it had embedded in Cuba turned out to be a double-agent? Judges question defendants when they ask for bail - the judges ask questions, look them in the eye while they reply, and decide if the accused is safe to be returned to the streets. But it turns out a computer program that simply analyses a data base of the suspect's rap sheet had a better record when determining who should be offered bail, even though the computer program did not have the judge's benefit of questioning the defendant and looking them in the eye. Less information for the computer program resulted in a better outcome. Why?

Gladwell explains that humans naturally "default to the truth" - we assume that the person we are talking to is telling us the truth. But some people are lying to us, such as the Cuban spies or Bernie Madoff. Defaulting to the truth is necessary for a civilization to arise; if we distrusted everyone we met, humans would not be able to organize into large complex societies. Gladwell tells us of Harry Markopolos, a financial analyst whose personality did not default to trusting that people are telling the truth. Markopolos analysed Bernie Madoff's investment results and was convinced they were fraudulent, but for years he could not get the SEC to investigate. Although Markopolos ultimately is proven to be correct, he also is so distrustful he arms himself with weapons and spends his time in paranoid hiding. Obviously, a society full of Markopolos types could not cooperate to run a country.

Gladwell also explains that another fault we have is that we believe that we can tell what another person is thinking by looking at their facial expressions and evaluating their body language. (Think back to George W. Bush's claim that he trusted Putin because he looked into his eyes - and because Putin was wearing a cross). We think we are good at evaluating people based upon what they do or say, but sometimes our analysis is terribly wrong. This is what happened in the Amanda Knox case. When Italian police questioned her about the murder of Meredith Kercher, Knox did not respond in the way the police expected. It turns out that Knox has an eccentric personality, she doesn't behave in the "normal" way. Anyone who knew Knox understood that what she said and did was "just Amanda being Amanda". But the Italian police did not know Knox, and when her responses were not in line with what they expected, they decided she was hiding something, even though there was zero evidence she was at the scene of the crime, or that she would have had any motivate for murdering Kercher. The Italian police failed in their evaluation of Knox's culpability.

The details of Sandra Bland case are especially frustrating. She is a black woman driving in Texas when she sees a police car pull up swiftly behind here. Bland pulls over to the next lane to let the police car pass - but officer Encinia pulls her over for failing to signal when she makes a lane change! Bland cannot believe that she is being stopped for a moving violation that he caused and is surly in her responses to Encinia. Things escalate from there until Bland is arrested and hauled off to jail. Gladwell says that Encinia needed more training to how to be a good police officer, but it is obvious he is simply a world-class jerk.

There is much that is interesting. Gladwell is a gifted writer who has a knack of making everything interesting. The book is a fast read. I should see which other Gladwell books I have missed and go back and read them.