THE TIPPING POINT is the biography of an idea‎,‎ and the idea is quite simple‎.‎ It is that many of the problems we face ‎- from crime to teenage delinquency to traffic jams ‎- behave like epidemics‎.‎ They aren‎'‎t linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them‎.‎ They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction‎.‎ Years of well‎-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all‎,‎ yet the right intervention ‎- at just the right time ‎- can start a cascade of change‎.‎ Many of the social ills that face us today‎,‎ in other words‎,‎ are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population‎:‎ little things can cause them to ‎'‎tip‎'‎ at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those ‎'‎Tipping Points‎'‎ are‎.‎ In this revolutionary new study‎,‎ Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this‎.‎ Not simply for politicians and policy‎-makers‎,‎ his method provides a new way of viewing everyday experience and enables us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company‎.‎