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Books

Why villains Chamberlain and his Eton
and Oxford-educated for-
win TALKING TO STRANGERS eign minister Lord Hali-
Malcolm Gladwell
ALLEN LANE fax, naively accepted the
Führer’s assurance that
OW ARE THE Rs.799 after annexing Sudetan-
world’s greatest Pages 386 land (the German majority
Hliars, frauds and province of Czechoslova-
megalomaniacs able to kia), the Nazi dictator had
inflict lasting damage no further territorial ambi-
upon their societies and the author makes the Why do highly trained tions. In 1938, Chamber-
the world without highly case that even the most professionals whose lain returned to London in
trained and intelligent well-educated and trained job is to detect crime triumph, waving a sheet
experts and watchdogs professionals whose job is and criminals fail of paper he had persuaded
being able to see through to detect crime and crimi- miserably and default Hitler to sign to that effect
them and stop them in nals, fail miserably and to truth? and famously proclaimed
time? That’s the subject default to truth, i.e, give “peace in our time”.
of the latest investigation malfeasants the benefit Only one maverick,
— deftly weaving history, of doubt. And if at all big- translated into the former holy fool whose career
psychology and sociology time crooks and swindlers accepting Cortez as a god. in politics seemed to be
— conducted by Malcolm are outed and brought And later when Montezu- over, was persistent in his
Gladwell, features writer to book, it’s because a ma didn’t accord him the denunciation of the Ger-
of the N ew Y ork er. Since contrarian, ‘holy fool’ in respect due to God, Cortes man dictator — Winston
he wrote his first best- Russian folklore — often had him murdered, and Churchill.
seller Tip p ing Point “a social misfit, eccentric, war broke out resulting A year later when
in 2000, Gladwell has off-putting and sometimes in the devastation of the Hitler invaded Poland,
acquired a global reputa- even crazy” non-estab- Aztec civilisation through the ruling Conservative
tion with his best-selling lishment outcast — blurts armed conflict and party ousted Chamberlain
non-fiction: Blink (2005), out an inconvenient truth diseases that unwashed and appointed Churchill
O utliers (2008), What the or question. Much like Europeans brought with prime minister. Britain
Dog S aw (2009), David the little boy who said the them. This encounter also declared war on Germany
and G oliath (2013) among emperor had no clothes. flagged off the European with fateful consequences
others. All of them have To illustrate his conten- conquest of India and for the strutting German
topped the N ew Y ork tion that the vast majority Africa and changed the dictator. But the ques-
Times bestsellers list and of people can’t adequately course of world history. tion Gladwell discusses in
have won him million dol- read strangers or even Four centuries later, considerable detail is how
lar advances from publish- acquaintances, the author at a time when the global could Chamberlain, Hali-
ers in the US. draws upon a series of power of the British em- fax and the entire British
The objective of fascinating examples pire was threatened by establishment fail to read
Gladwell’s latest oeuvre from ancient and 20th Adolf Hitler and Nazi Hitler correctly, despite
is to demonstrate that century history. In 1519, Germany, prime minister his patent megalomaniacal
when strangers talk to the Spanish conquistador Neville Chamberlain took intentions?
each other, a false word Hernando Cortes became his first flight abroad to In this manner the au-
here or there can lead to the first European to hit meet with the German dic- thor examines several case
disastrous consequences, land in Mexico and met tator. Although there was histories ranging from the
and conversely even when with King Montezuma II, a mountain of evidence, pathetic inability of the
people communicate with ruler of the Aztec em- including his book Mein US Central Intelligence
familiar individuals they pire, a civilisation far in K amp f in which Hitler Agency — projected in the
often fail to read their advance of 16th century had written of his intent to movies as a super-intel-
character or malign intent. Europe. Neither spoke conquer Europe, extermi- ligent organisation — to
Drawing from con- each other’s language and nate Jews, and his need repeatedly fail to detect
temporary newspaper relied on inexpert transla- for leb ensraum in the even careless double
headlines, history, the tors. The upshot was that vast steppes of Russia for agents working within its
murky world of espionage when the king uttered an hemmed in German volk , offices around the world,
and famous legal cases, honorific for Cortez, it was despite meeting him twice, the failure of multiple gov-

MAY 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 89