Malcolm Gladwells new vision of the world ahead of us: Our lives can be tipped

By 1978, nearly three decades after the end of the Second World War, only one Holocaust museum existed in the entire United States — in Los Angeles.History books from the post-war period barely mentioned the Holocaust, and the term itself appeared rarely in newspapers or magazines.

As a result, most Americans, including many younger Jews, had no knowledge of the atrocity.But suddenly, Malcolm Gladwell writes in his new book, “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” something changed.Two NBC executives, Paul Klein and Irwin Segelstein, created a miniseries called “Holocaust: The Family Weiss Story,” an unflinching look at the horrors of the Holocaust.

The show aired over a four-day period in 1978 and became a huge hit, reaching half the households in America. Many Americans, who had never learned about the Holocaust, were shocked and horrified.In Germany, when the translated version aired the following year, it caused a social and cultural reckoning.

German youths disavowed their Nazi elders, and the government enacted new laws to target Nazi war criminals.The show also helped many Jews in America come to terms with their collective trauma.

“What ‘Holocaust’ did was give permission for the world to talk about something that had until that point been considered off limits,” says Gladwell.Today, Holocaust museums stand in almost every major city in America. All because two guys made a TV show.“Revenge” comes more than two decades after Gladwell’s first book, “The Tipping Point,” whose simple-sounding thesis — that little things can make a big difference — helped it become a best-seller.

“Look at the world around you,” he wrote at the time.“It may seem like an immovable, implacable place.

It is not.With the slightest push — in just the right place — it can be tipped.”Gladwell’s new book explores how individuals can use power and influence to shape our “overstories”—the collective narratives we tell ourselves as grou...