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Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of a number of multiple bestsellers including The Tipping Point, Outliers and Blink.
Gladwell was inspired to write Blink after three police officers detained him because he resembled a rapist. When Gladwell realized that he and the rapist only shared a similar haircut, he began to think about how much emphasis people put on their instant perceptions. Blink is Gladwell's venture into the world of rapid cognition. Through his research, Gladwell found that humans are strongly influenced by the rapid judgments they make on a daily basis. However, because these judgments are made in the blink of an eye, we have trouble understanding them. Gladwell argues that, when practiced and perfected, we have the ability to improve the accuracy of our snap judgments. In the end, better snap judgments can lead to a better world.
Blink is a very popular book that has spent time as a #1 National Bestseller. While most feedback on the book has been positive, there have been a number of critics that claim Gladwell does not form one cohesive argument and that he relies on flimsy evidence. Yet these critics have not affected the book's popularity, as it has sold over 2 million copies.
