What do you think?
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic
Malcolm Gladwell’s most urgent book a provocative investigation of America’s epidemic of gun violence.
The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?
In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity”—how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.
Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?
In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.
The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?
In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity”—how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.
Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?
In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.
Audible Audio
Published September 29, 2026
About the author
Malcolm Gladwell
140 books40.6k followersMalcolm Timothy Gladwell is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has published seven books. He is also the host of the podcast Revisionist History and co-founder of the podcast company Pushkin Industries.
Gladwell's writings often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences, such as sociology and psychology, and make frequent and extended use of academic work. Gladwell was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2011.
Gladwell's writings often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences, such as sociology and psychology, and make frequent and extended use of academic work. Gladwell was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2011.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
When I was a child, a boy across the street shot himself in the head with a handgun.
About a decade later, a young man who lived on the street behind us shot himself in the head with a handgun.
In many countries, that would be an extraordinarily high acquaintance with gun deaths. But in many places in America, that’s mercifully low.
At the start of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The American Way of Killing, he talks with a Chicago doctor who’s lost 15 “close friends” to guns.
“This does not happen anywhere else in the developed world,” Gladwell writes.
Indeed, the numbers are so staggering — and so familiar — that we don’t really hear them anymore.
Gladwell notes that when he turned 12 in Canada, there were 701 murders in his entire country. That same year there were 1,645 just in New York City.
Why? he asks throughout this brisk, outraged book. Why is America so violent, so deadly, and so resistant to the most obvious solutions?
His answer is a particularly Gladwellian one: “Americans don’t see their problem clearly.”
And so, he sets out, in his typically engaging way, to explain what we’re missing. It’s a quick tour of American culture and history that feels more revelatory than it really is.
Provocatively, he starts by accusing gun control advocates of being “dishonest.” Their “single-minded focus” on mass shootings and certain types of assault rifles, he claims, ignores...
You can read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/mal...
About a decade later, a young man who lived on the street behind us shot himself in the head with a handgun.
In many countries, that would be an extraordinarily high acquaintance with gun deaths. But in many places in America, that’s mercifully low.
At the start of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The American Way of Killing, he talks with a Chicago doctor who’s lost 15 “close friends” to guns.
“This does not happen anywhere else in the developed world,” Gladwell writes.
Indeed, the numbers are so staggering — and so familiar — that we don’t really hear them anymore.
Gladwell notes that when he turned 12 in Canada, there were 701 murders in his entire country. That same year there were 1,645 just in New York City.
Why? he asks throughout this brisk, outraged book. Why is America so violent, so deadly, and so resistant to the most obvious solutions?
His answer is a particularly Gladwellian one: “Americans don’t see their problem clearly.”
And so, he sets out, in his typically engaging way, to explain what we’re missing. It’s a quick tour of American culture and history that feels more revelatory than it really is.
Provocatively, he starts by accusing gun control advocates of being “dishonest.” Their “single-minded focus” on mass shootings and certain types of assault rifles, he claims, ignores...
You can read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/mal...
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Malcolm Gladwell has done it again. He has a way of telling stories by talking to the right people and asking the right questions. He comes at popular subjects from angles that often others leave undisturbed. For instance, I came into this book as an advocate of “defund the police”; not a staunch advocate mind you, but one that definitely feels reshuffling of police resources needs to be explored. But Malcolm Gladwell has challenged me to the point, where I’m rethinking my advocacy. Damnit Mr. Gladwell!! This of course speaks to the power of his prose. And it’s not like he is making a strong argument for increasing police numbers, but through his conversations and nuanced angles his case becomes clearer, if not compelling. That policing discourse is part of the larger discussion around gun violence and how America has an inability to have honest dialogue.
“A conversation becomes dishonest when either side pretends that something is consequential when it is not, avoids the right conclusion just because it is difficult, or through laziness or indifference blinds itself to the truth. This is a dishonest conversation.”
He divides the book into three parts, Dishonest Conversations, where the gun violence issue in America is addressed, along with an eye opening and honest discussion about the 2nd Amendment, the Constitutional critique is worth the price of the book alone. The other two parts are Misdiagnoses and Moral Absurdity. In each of these sections, the chapters are filled with Gladwell anecdotes and effective questions built around interesting stories that is classic Malcolm Gladwell.
“The American Way of Killing is the story of a country that has lost its way.” I endorse that sentiment 100%. This book reads quickly and you lament its end. As I was hungry for more stories more subjects more analysis. Just more.
“……..and if there’s a theme that runs through all the stories I’ve told, it’s that Americans don’t see their problem clearly. They think they have a problem with crime. They don’t.
They have a problem with violence. They think they are overpoliced. They aren’t. They are underpoliced. They think murderers behave as deliberately as they do in murder mysteries and on Law & Order. They don’t. Homicide is mostly just young men getting into arguments and losing their heads. They think their Constitution enshrines a basic right to own guns. It doesn’t. The founding fathers were just trying to cut a deal with slave owners. They think their violent crime is coming down. But is it? Or are people like Eddie Cornwell just making it invisible?”
This is one you’ll want to read and discuss. A big thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Co. for an advanced DRC. Book will explode into stores and onto bestsellers lists 09.29.26
“A conversation becomes dishonest when either side pretends that something is consequential when it is not, avoids the right conclusion just because it is difficult, or through laziness or indifference blinds itself to the truth. This is a dishonest conversation.”
He divides the book into three parts, Dishonest Conversations, where the gun violence issue in America is addressed, along with an eye opening and honest discussion about the 2nd Amendment, the Constitutional critique is worth the price of the book alone. The other two parts are Misdiagnoses and Moral Absurdity. In each of these sections, the chapters are filled with Gladwell anecdotes and effective questions built around interesting stories that is classic Malcolm Gladwell.
“The American Way of Killing is the story of a country that has lost its way.” I endorse that sentiment 100%. This book reads quickly and you lament its end. As I was hungry for more stories more subjects more analysis. Just more.
“……..and if there’s a theme that runs through all the stories I’ve told, it’s that Americans don’t see their problem clearly. They think they have a problem with crime. They don’t.
They have a problem with violence. They think they are overpoliced. They aren’t. They are underpoliced. They think murderers behave as deliberately as they do in murder mysteries and on Law & Order. They don’t. Homicide is mostly just young men getting into arguments and losing their heads. They think their Constitution enshrines a basic right to own guns. It doesn’t. The founding fathers were just trying to cut a deal with slave owners. They think their violent crime is coming down. But is it? Or are people like Eddie Cornwell just making it invisible?”
This is one you’ll want to read and discuss. A big thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Co. for an advanced DRC. Book will explode into stores and onto bestsellers lists 09.29.26
October 1, 2026
Malcolm Gladwell is soooo good at coming up with arguments and arguing them in a way that feels well reasoned and researched. He comes up with stories and antidotes that are compelling but don't hold up under scrutiny. That is the case with this book. He also seems to not have thesis in this book. There is no diagnosis or solution or theory. He just offers observations dispassionately so as to seem above the fray and smarter than everyone else. This book ignores historical context, slurps the police (his fave), and employs the phrase "the most arbitrary of reasons" to name racism. Gladwell is gonna Gladwell.
September 30, 2026
There was a mass shooting last year at the grade school school I went to growing up, killing two children and injuring 29 others. The school is in my neighborhood. This happened to my community. So, The American Way of Killing hit close to home.
This book turns the pro-gun-rights argument on its head. I was so engrossed as I listened, I was constantly saying things out loud (at the grocery store, while running errands, I didn't care).
The book has a fair amount of interesting, relatively unknown history and is organized into three almost equally compelling parts: Dishonest Conversations, Misdiagnoses, and Moral Absurdity. The Second Amendment background is absolutely fascinating, as is information on policing rates and insight from renowned trauma surgeons on gun violence.
It never occurred to me that the increasing number of gunshot victims who live because of medical advancements can make homicide rates appear to be going down when, in fact, they're not. And because we measure gun violence by death, these skewed statistics (less murder, more aggravated assault) prevent us from having honest conversations about policy reform. Gladwell always proposes novel ways of looking at things.
If you're deciding between print and audio, the audio's narrated like a podcast and includes live interviews with all of the experts in the book. It runs six hours and is probably a more engaging way to read through 17th-century British case law (which, mind you, on Audible is actually riveting. No joke).
This book turns the pro-gun-rights argument on its head. I was so engrossed as I listened, I was constantly saying things out loud (at the grocery store, while running errands, I didn't care).
The book has a fair amount of interesting, relatively unknown history and is organized into three almost equally compelling parts: Dishonest Conversations, Misdiagnoses, and Moral Absurdity. The Second Amendment background is absolutely fascinating, as is information on policing rates and insight from renowned trauma surgeons on gun violence.
It never occurred to me that the increasing number of gunshot victims who live because of medical advancements can make homicide rates appear to be going down when, in fact, they're not. And because we measure gun violence by death, these skewed statistics (less murder, more aggravated assault) prevent us from having honest conversations about policy reform. Gladwell always proposes novel ways of looking at things.
If you're deciding between print and audio, the audio's narrated like a podcast and includes live interviews with all of the experts in the book. It runs six hours and is probably a more engaging way to read through 17th-century British case law (which, mind you, on Audible is actually riveting. No joke).
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The American Way of Killing takes a dive into past and present, in search of a logic to "make it make sense" when considering the sheer volume of gun violence victims and the limited laws restricting firearm access or use. The gun lobby will likely have a few spicy takes on the book. It's not exactly about firearms though--it's about everything that precedes their statistical relevance and newsworthy expression (and what doesn't), turning its aftereffects into the titular epidemic of gun violence.
Writing from Canada, my understanding of gun violence is slightly different than the average American (wholly different, actually). There are certain parts of the book however, that should bear moral weight regardless of gun law variations across the continent. The narratives of people whose lives and careers intersect with gun violence--trauma surgeons and doctors, members of the police force, legal researchers and experts, lawyers, historians, and ordinary citizens--round out the raw data it shares. It is written in the same narrative vein as his other books, which make it very readable, if not urgently so. As a testament to this, I tore through it in one morning before work.
There were a few points in the book that shocked me, but I won't spoil the best bits and go all out in this review. I was astounded however, that a popular author like Malcolm Gladwell has a higher research standard when considering historical case law around gun access, than Supreme Court judges. He details the Sullivan case heard before the Supreme Court in 2021 and offers more rigorously researched an opinion than the judges hearing it who limited it to a 1600s era bigoted merchant, Sir John Knight. Judicial commentary from the case reveals the profoundly low bar that exists for a bench that is lionized as caring about and serving "the people". It makes you question whether the Supreme Court justices are really beholden to the impartiality they might claim is part of their job. I was also a bit shocked to learn that Texan and other state laws were stricter in the 1800s than they are today.
I also got a little bit of an education while reading, in that my understanding of policing was brought to bear with statistics in a way that challenged my prior knowledge. I started the book a prison abolitionist and still remain one. What has changed however, is questioning whether policing itself is the sickness when it is more of a symptom. When abolitionist advocates like myself talk about community safety, are we talking about addressing the symptom, or the sickness? Gladwell's book didn't set out to diagnose these things, but it's something I was left with after reading. How is it that European countries with fewer people than the United States (by a huge margin) have more police officers on their forces (by an equally huge margin) but fewer (at least from what the media reports) violent acts of police brutality and corruption? Gladwell makes a compelling, and perhaps too brief an argument that America doesn't have too much policing but far too little. My want to know more per Gladwell's take is a bit selfish, I know, but how can you not want to be more informed with such great writing and research?
Abolitionists' rallying cry is that of community service, and programs that prevent violence rather than singularly address its outbreak (among other tenets). Gladwell demonstrates that police violence and brutality is in part, because availability of officers and training has prioritized the lowest common denominator of solving problems quickly: a breaking knees philosophy of addressing issues. Unsurprisingly, this causes more violence than it prevents. European policing seems comparable to a five star Michelin restaurant devoted to a high-quality experience, where American policing is like drive-thru fast food: fast, cheap, and easy because the goal isn't quality of experience, but quantity of time saved. But who decided that quantity of cost and time savings was the most effective metric of a safe world when it seems that quality is more successful elsewhere? What is policing forced to prioritize where these constraints shape the consciousness of what ought to be foregrounded in discussions of community safety and addressing criminality? The justifications of these metrics seem like they are part of the sickness, with policing as it is in America (and perhaps North America, where Canada's historical RCMP treatment of Indigenous communities is equally horrifying) being the symptom. It's a juxtaposition that is not easily overlooked. If we don't address problems at the root, the shoots will still emerge somewhere else but in another capacity. He doesn't offer a modern policing coup de grâce, but does lay the groundwork for some excellent mainstream questions of it. Now I want to know more about European policing beyond the anecdotes mentioned of Berlin policing, and German prisons. It has inspired me to do a little more research, so that my opinions on things like policing are better informed, even if my abolitionist and prevention sensibility remains unchanged.
Some might argue that the book is too short or that it tries to touch on too many aspects of the gun violence conversation. Others might say that it reads like an extended podcast episode (but that's what a lot of non-fiction books are in general). What I would encourage before accepting that kind of critique however, is seeing the book as a springboard for better questions about the systems that support the pillars of American consciousness that regard guns as indivisible from national identity. The best books never claim to be everything, and if you're looking for a lengthy treatise on policing or gun violence, this won't be your book. If your sense of citizenship is anchored in national symbols like guns, more than participatory democracy and its collective apparatus, you may also bristle against it. These are basic caveats to readers wondering about reading the book.
Whether you love the book, or want to rid shelves of it, it's impossible to ignore. The American Way of Killing is another solid offering from the Gladwell oeuvre!
Many thanks to the publisher and author for the eARC downloaded via NetGalley.
Writing from Canada, my understanding of gun violence is slightly different than the average American (wholly different, actually). There are certain parts of the book however, that should bear moral weight regardless of gun law variations across the continent. The narratives of people whose lives and careers intersect with gun violence--trauma surgeons and doctors, members of the police force, legal researchers and experts, lawyers, historians, and ordinary citizens--round out the raw data it shares. It is written in the same narrative vein as his other books, which make it very readable, if not urgently so. As a testament to this, I tore through it in one morning before work.
There were a few points in the book that shocked me, but I won't spoil the best bits and go all out in this review. I was astounded however, that a popular author like Malcolm Gladwell has a higher research standard when considering historical case law around gun access, than Supreme Court judges. He details the Sullivan case heard before the Supreme Court in 2021 and offers more rigorously researched an opinion than the judges hearing it who limited it to a 1600s era bigoted merchant, Sir John Knight. Judicial commentary from the case reveals the profoundly low bar that exists for a bench that is lionized as caring about and serving "the people". It makes you question whether the Supreme Court justices are really beholden to the impartiality they might claim is part of their job. I was also a bit shocked to learn that Texan and other state laws were stricter in the 1800s than they are today.
I also got a little bit of an education while reading, in that my understanding of policing was brought to bear with statistics in a way that challenged my prior knowledge. I started the book a prison abolitionist and still remain one. What has changed however, is questioning whether policing itself is the sickness when it is more of a symptom. When abolitionist advocates like myself talk about community safety, are we talking about addressing the symptom, or the sickness? Gladwell's book didn't set out to diagnose these things, but it's something I was left with after reading. How is it that European countries with fewer people than the United States (by a huge margin) have more police officers on their forces (by an equally huge margin) but fewer (at least from what the media reports) violent acts of police brutality and corruption? Gladwell makes a compelling, and perhaps too brief an argument that America doesn't have too much policing but far too little. My want to know more per Gladwell's take is a bit selfish, I know, but how can you not want to be more informed with such great writing and research?
Abolitionists' rallying cry is that of community service, and programs that prevent violence rather than singularly address its outbreak (among other tenets). Gladwell demonstrates that police violence and brutality is in part, because availability of officers and training has prioritized the lowest common denominator of solving problems quickly: a breaking knees philosophy of addressing issues. Unsurprisingly, this causes more violence than it prevents. European policing seems comparable to a five star Michelin restaurant devoted to a high-quality experience, where American policing is like drive-thru fast food: fast, cheap, and easy because the goal isn't quality of experience, but quantity of time saved. But who decided that quantity of cost and time savings was the most effective metric of a safe world when it seems that quality is more successful elsewhere? What is policing forced to prioritize where these constraints shape the consciousness of what ought to be foregrounded in discussions of community safety and addressing criminality? The justifications of these metrics seem like they are part of the sickness, with policing as it is in America (and perhaps North America, where Canada's historical RCMP treatment of Indigenous communities is equally horrifying) being the symptom. It's a juxtaposition that is not easily overlooked. If we don't address problems at the root, the shoots will still emerge somewhere else but in another capacity. He doesn't offer a modern policing coup de grâce, but does lay the groundwork for some excellent mainstream questions of it. Now I want to know more about European policing beyond the anecdotes mentioned of Berlin policing, and German prisons. It has inspired me to do a little more research, so that my opinions on things like policing are better informed, even if my abolitionist and prevention sensibility remains unchanged.
Some might argue that the book is too short or that it tries to touch on too many aspects of the gun violence conversation. Others might say that it reads like an extended podcast episode (but that's what a lot of non-fiction books are in general). What I would encourage before accepting that kind of critique however, is seeing the book as a springboard for better questions about the systems that support the pillars of American consciousness that regard guns as indivisible from national identity. The best books never claim to be everything, and if you're looking for a lengthy treatise on policing or gun violence, this won't be your book. If your sense of citizenship is anchored in national symbols like guns, more than participatory democracy and its collective apparatus, you may also bristle against it. These are basic caveats to readers wondering about reading the book.
Whether you love the book, or want to rid shelves of it, it's impossible to ignore. The American Way of Killing is another solid offering from the Gladwell oeuvre!
Many thanks to the publisher and author for the eARC downloaded via NetGalley.
August 3, 2026
A big thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for letting me read an early copy of this book.
I’ve always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I finish each one feeling like I’ve learned something new about the world and gained a different perspective on how to understand its complexities.
In this book, Gladwell tackles one of the most controversial issues facing the United States today: the rise in gun violence. Drawing on examples from both the United States and around the world, he explores how this problem has grown over time and attempts to uncover some of the underlying factors contributing to it.
This is an issue I care deeply about. As an elementary school teacher, school safety is something that is always on my mind. Since the tragedy at Uvalde, I’ve followed efforts to reduce gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. The reality is that you never know what could happen in a public place, and that uncertainty weighs heavily on many educators.
Perhaps I missed something, but I found myself wishing the book spent more time discussing potential solutions. While Gladwell does an excellent job examining the problem and its possible causes, I would have appreciated more discussion about ways to combat the increase in gun violence. Of course, this is an incredibly complex issue that experts, policymakers, and communities continue to grapple with, and there are no easy answers. Still, I finished the book hoping to come away with a few ideas that might inspire meaningful change and help make the world a safer place.
I’ve always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I finish each one feeling like I’ve learned something new about the world and gained a different perspective on how to understand its complexities.
In this book, Gladwell tackles one of the most controversial issues facing the United States today: the rise in gun violence. Drawing on examples from both the United States and around the world, he explores how this problem has grown over time and attempts to uncover some of the underlying factors contributing to it.
This is an issue I care deeply about. As an elementary school teacher, school safety is something that is always on my mind. Since the tragedy at Uvalde, I’ve followed efforts to reduce gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. The reality is that you never know what could happen in a public place, and that uncertainty weighs heavily on many educators.
Perhaps I missed something, but I found myself wishing the book spent more time discussing potential solutions. While Gladwell does an excellent job examining the problem and its possible causes, I would have appreciated more discussion about ways to combat the increase in gun violence. Of course, this is an incredibly complex issue that experts, policymakers, and communities continue to grapple with, and there are no easy answers. Still, I finished the book hoping to come away with a few ideas that might inspire meaningful change and help make the world a safer place.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Malcolm Gladwell never fails to engage and provoke. This short read is well worth the time.
Gladwell posits that Americans don't have the real story when it comes to violence in our country. Almost everything we know is filtered through the media and through the politicians and most of it is either flat out wrong or simplified. It's hard to solve the real problem is you don't even know what it is. Defining the problem is the first step toward solving it.
(As an aside, I can't imagine this is the only issue in which our viewpoints lack nuance for the same exact reasons; it's frightening).
Gladwell divides violence in America into two categories: 1) that which is carefully planned in the furtherance of personal gain and 2) that which arises out of disagreements that escalate.
Guess which is more? Hint: It's not #1.
Gladwell's goes on to analyze how the U.S. could really do a much better job with handling the most common episodes of violence, and he uses fascinating data comparisons with other countries to illuminate his points.
Very worthwhile, and I hope the country reads it widely. What's extra refreshing is the fact that the politics are not clearly right leaning nor clearly left leaning because both sides have it SO wrong.
Gladwell posits that Americans don't have the real story when it comes to violence in our country. Almost everything we know is filtered through the media and through the politicians and most of it is either flat out wrong or simplified. It's hard to solve the real problem is you don't even know what it is. Defining the problem is the first step toward solving it.
(As an aside, I can't imagine this is the only issue in which our viewpoints lack nuance for the same exact reasons; it's frightening).
Gladwell divides violence in America into two categories: 1) that which is carefully planned in the furtherance of personal gain and 2) that which arises out of disagreements that escalate.
Guess which is more? Hint: It's not #1.
Gladwell's goes on to analyze how the U.S. could really do a much better job with handling the most common episodes of violence, and he uses fascinating data comparisons with other countries to illuminate his points.
Very worthwhile, and I hope the country reads it widely. What's extra refreshing is the fact that the politics are not clearly right leaning nor clearly left leaning because both sides have it SO wrong.
Review of advance copy
Malcolm Gladwell is a compelling, accessible storyteller. That makes this book a quick and easy read. Here he attempts to expand upon the 'dishonest' conversation of gun violence in the U.S., to pretty meagre success. What I enjoyed most was the professionals whose experiences in medicine, criminology, youth education, and law are enlightening and fascinating. I also appreciated his historical contextualization of the Second Amendment--that it was designed to proliferate and protect the role of slave patrols (though Gladwell could have better analogized this crucial fact to modern times). Ultimately, I feel Gladwell fails to achieve a radical reframing of the gun violence conversation, offering instead some (mostly) interesting facts and anecdotes that did little to change my mind about how gun violence operates in the U.S.
The most concerning aspect of this book is that Gladwell manages to ENTIRELY omit the daily reality of "police-involved shootings" (aka police murder civilians). How, in a book about American gun violence, does Gladwell manage to interview numerous police officers and chiefs, but no victims of police violence? Numerous times, Gladwell states that America is "underpoliced, not overpoliced." He does this without providing ANY evidence about how increasing police funding would reduce violence or murder, except saying "that's how Europe does it," despite it being an entirely different continent with different cultures, legislation, and histories. He even decides to dunk on Mariame Kaba, abolitionists, and Black Lives Matters activists, invalidating the extreme racism demonstrated across American police force.
Gladwell barely touches issues of race and class, except for briefly acknowledging the impact of medical racism on ambulance response times. He also ignores the role of the mainstream media in proliferating false, racialized narratives about gun violence, as well as the fact that America's violence is also deeply entwined with its exorbitantly warmongering military industrial complex (the biggest in the world). While there may be some benefits in his choice to circumnavigate "bipartisan" politics, it feels ahistorical that Gladwell ignores the broader culture of violence, hierarchies, patriarchy, and imperialism in which his subject is nested.
The most concerning aspect of this book is that Gladwell manages to ENTIRELY omit the daily reality of "police-involved shootings" (aka police murder civilians). How, in a book about American gun violence, does Gladwell manage to interview numerous police officers and chiefs, but no victims of police violence? Numerous times, Gladwell states that America is "underpoliced, not overpoliced." He does this without providing ANY evidence about how increasing police funding would reduce violence or murder, except saying "that's how Europe does it," despite it being an entirely different continent with different cultures, legislation, and histories. He even decides to dunk on Mariame Kaba, abolitionists, and Black Lives Matters activists, invalidating the extreme racism demonstrated across American police force.
Gladwell barely touches issues of race and class, except for briefly acknowledging the impact of medical racism on ambulance response times. He also ignores the role of the mainstream media in proliferating false, racialized narratives about gun violence, as well as the fact that America's violence is also deeply entwined with its exorbitantly warmongering military industrial complex (the biggest in the world). While there may be some benefits in his choice to circumnavigate "bipartisan" politics, it feels ahistorical that Gladwell ignores the broader culture of violence, hierarchies, patriarchy, and imperialism in which his subject is nested.
September 29, 2026
***.5
An interesting look at gun violence in the US, done in Gladwell's signature style. The audiobook format is perfect, as he narrates it himself and includes interview snippets in the people's own voice, along with historical reenactments, court testimony, and even a full-length song.
He starts by pointing out that the focus on "assault weapons" mostly misses the point. For instance, the most recent version of the proposed ban (from the Biden administration, which failed to pass) includes 8 pages of banned weapons, and 60+ pages of equally lethal guns that would still be permissible under the new law. He also provides copious statistics demonstrating that the high-profile mass shootings account for a tiny fraction of gun deaths, and that handguns are far more deadly than rifles. He then goes on to explain why the second amendment was written the way it was, and how most modern interpretations both ignore the history and are made in bad faith.
Where it got really interesting was the discussion on policing and how it explains the vast disparity in gun deaths between the US and other similar countries (eg Germany). Contrary to common misconception, there are actually a lot more police in most Western countries. Which means that the certainty of a criminal being caught is much higher. Conversely, the severity of the punishment is much higher in the US, with longer prison sentences and much harsher conditions. This difference in priorities is reflected in spending, with 80/20 vs 20/80 splits in funding between the police and prisons. And the percentage of solved crimes is also proportionate to the prioritization of preventing and solving crimes rather than punishing the offenders who do get caught.
As a result, he comes out strongly against the "defund the police" movement, arguing that we'd be better off with many more cops on the streets. In this scenario, they'd be more embedded in the community, in positions to quicker to defuse situations before they escalate to violence, rather than the current method of responding after the fact with guns blazing.
He also emphasizes the distinction between premeditated ("instrumental") crime and incidental ("crimes of passion"). The laws and policing are mostly geared towards the first, but the reality is that latter are much more common. He then ties this in to availability of guns being strongly linked to suicide. It turns out that when denied ownership of firearms (especially handguns), more people will seek alternates to suicide, rather than a different method.
The other major interesting observation was that American trauma centers have become really good at treating gunshots, which means that the number of gun deaths is relatively low for the amount of gun violence. And of course the response time and quality of treatment is racially segregated, just like every other aspect of the criminal justice system.
What was largely missing from the discussion was the role of the NRA, or looking at how the two parties agree/differ on the subject. He focuses a lot on inner city gang violence (ie Black people) but doesn't quantitatively compare that to rural white drug-fueled violence. He uses NY state as an example (with the most restrictive gun ownership laws) but doesn't compare low vs high income, North vs South, East Coast vs Western states, etc. It's not that he cherry-picked data to make his points, but rather that he ignored a great many related issues. The book is simply too short, overly relying on compelling anecdotes to paint a detailed picture of a single tree, rather than zooming out to examine the state of the whole [figurative] forest.
An interesting look at gun violence in the US, done in Gladwell's signature style. The audiobook format is perfect, as he narrates it himself and includes interview snippets in the people's own voice, along with historical reenactments, court testimony, and even a full-length song.
He starts by pointing out that the focus on "assault weapons" mostly misses the point. For instance, the most recent version of the proposed ban (from the Biden administration, which failed to pass) includes 8 pages of banned weapons, and 60+ pages of equally lethal guns that would still be permissible under the new law. He also provides copious statistics demonstrating that the high-profile mass shootings account for a tiny fraction of gun deaths, and that handguns are far more deadly than rifles. He then goes on to explain why the second amendment was written the way it was, and how most modern interpretations both ignore the history and are made in bad faith.
Where it got really interesting was the discussion on policing and how it explains the vast disparity in gun deaths between the US and other similar countries (eg Germany). Contrary to common misconception, there are actually a lot more police in most Western countries. Which means that the certainty of a criminal being caught is much higher. Conversely, the severity of the punishment is much higher in the US, with longer prison sentences and much harsher conditions. This difference in priorities is reflected in spending, with 80/20 vs 20/80 splits in funding between the police and prisons. And the percentage of solved crimes is also proportionate to the prioritization of preventing and solving crimes rather than punishing the offenders who do get caught.
As a result, he comes out strongly against the "defund the police" movement, arguing that we'd be better off with many more cops on the streets. In this scenario, they'd be more embedded in the community, in positions to quicker to defuse situations before they escalate to violence, rather than the current method of responding after the fact with guns blazing.
He also emphasizes the distinction between premeditated ("instrumental") crime and incidental ("crimes of passion"). The laws and policing are mostly geared towards the first, but the reality is that latter are much more common. He then ties this in to availability of guns being strongly linked to suicide. It turns out that when denied ownership of firearms (especially handguns), more people will seek alternates to suicide, rather than a different method.
The other major interesting observation was that American trauma centers have become really good at treating gunshots, which means that the number of gun deaths is relatively low for the amount of gun violence. And of course the response time and quality of treatment is racially segregated, just like every other aspect of the criminal justice system.
What was largely missing from the discussion was the role of the NRA, or looking at how the two parties agree/differ on the subject. He focuses a lot on inner city gang violence (ie Black people) but doesn't quantitatively compare that to rural white drug-fueled violence. He uses NY state as an example (with the most restrictive gun ownership laws) but doesn't compare low vs high income, North vs South, East Coast vs Western states, etc. It's not that he cherry-picked data to make his points, but rather that he ignored a great many related issues. The book is simply too short, overly relying on compelling anecdotes to paint a detailed picture of a single tree, rather than zooming out to examine the state of the whole [figurative] forest.
Review of advance copy received from Storygraph
Writing from Canada, my understanding of gun violence is slightly different than the average American (wholly different, actually). There are certain parts of the book however, that should bear moral weight regardless of gun law variations across the continent. The narratives of people whose lives and careers intersect with gun violence--trauma surgeons and doctors, members of the police force, legal researchers and experts, lawyers, historians, and ordinary citizens--round out the raw data it shares. It is written in the same narrative vein as his other books, which make it very readable, if not urgently so. As a testament to this, I tore through it in one morning before work.
There were a few points in the book that shocked me, but I won't spoil the best bits and go all out in this review. I was astounded however, that a popular author like Malcolm Gladwell has a higher research standard when considering historical case law around gun access, than Supreme Court judges. He details the Sullivan case heard before the Supreme Court in 2021 and offers more rigorously researched an opinion than the judges hearing it who limited it to a 1600s era bigoted merchant, Sir John Knight. Judicial commentary from the case reveals the profoundly low bar that exists for a bench that is lionized as caring about and serving "the people". It makes you question whether the Supreme Court justices are really beholden to the impartiality they might claim is part of their job. I was also a bit shocked to learn that Texan and other state laws were stricter in the 1800s than they are today.
There were a few points in the book that shocked me, but I won't spoil the best bits and go all out in this review. I was astounded however, that a popular author like Malcolm Gladwell has a higher research standard when considering historical case law around gun access, than Supreme Court judges. He details the Sullivan case heard before the Supreme Court in 2021 and offers more rigorously researched an opinion than the judges hearing it who limited it to a 1600s era bigoted merchant, Sir John Knight. Judicial commentary from the case reveals the profoundly low bar that exists for a bench that is lionized as caring about and serving "the people". It makes you question whether the Supreme Court justices are really beholden to the impartiality they might claim is part of their job. I was also a bit shocked to learn that Texan and other state laws were stricter in the 1800s than they are today.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Gladwell's new book takes on America's relationship to guns, arguing that our inability to fully understand the problem of gun violence prevents us from taking effective steps to end it. Each chapter offers a slightly different perspective, from the historical (Madison's development of the second amendment, the inaccurate popular view of 19th century Dodge City) to the present-day (the cyclical relationship between increased gun shot wounds and American medical expertise at treating them). Many of these perspectives were new to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to enter conversations about gun violence with more information and nuance. Where Gladwell lost me a bit is in his treatment of racism, which he alternately argues defines America's relationship to guns and ignores.
Gladwell clearly sees racism as inextricable from the problem of American gun violence. In different chapters, he contends that the second amendment is the product of Southern planter anxieties about the rebellious potential of enslaved people and that modern-day racism leads more Black people to die of treatable gunshot wounds, therefore leading to artificially prolonged jail sentences for Black assailants. These points both seem important, though Gladwell offers little guidance about what to do about them. Instead, he argues that a major problem with America's relationship to gun violence is that we have too few police, in a chapter that feels notable for the careful way it avoids discussing racism. For example, Gladwell attributes George Floyd's murder to the actions of a rogue cop, a framing that ignores the other officers present and the wave of support he received in the aftermath. He suggests that BLM activists calling for reductions in police forces misunderstand the problem--that police brutality is a function of officer stress at being stretched too thin rather than a phenomenon shaped by the historical and current racial dynamics that Gladwell points to in other parts of the book. In essence, Gladwell seems to be arguing that racism is a fundamental part of understanding the problem of American gun violence but immaterial to its solution, despite the fact that modern-day policing grew out of the same history of slavery and slave patrols that he points to in his discussion of the second amendment.
Gladwell's clarity and urgency on the issue of gun violence is undermined somewhat by his contradictory position on race. I also wished, at the end of the book, for a stronger call to action: one informed by all the nuance and context that Gladwell clearly believes is essential to our understanding of this most American of problems.
Gladwell clearly sees racism as inextricable from the problem of American gun violence. In different chapters, he contends that the second amendment is the product of Southern planter anxieties about the rebellious potential of enslaved people and that modern-day racism leads more Black people to die of treatable gunshot wounds, therefore leading to artificially prolonged jail sentences for Black assailants. These points both seem important, though Gladwell offers little guidance about what to do about them. Instead, he argues that a major problem with America's relationship to gun violence is that we have too few police, in a chapter that feels notable for the careful way it avoids discussing racism. For example, Gladwell attributes George Floyd's murder to the actions of a rogue cop, a framing that ignores the other officers present and the wave of support he received in the aftermath. He suggests that BLM activists calling for reductions in police forces misunderstand the problem--that police brutality is a function of officer stress at being stretched too thin rather than a phenomenon shaped by the historical and current racial dynamics that Gladwell points to in other parts of the book. In essence, Gladwell seems to be arguing that racism is a fundamental part of understanding the problem of American gun violence but immaterial to its solution, despite the fact that modern-day policing grew out of the same history of slavery and slave patrols that he points to in his discussion of the second amendment.
Gladwell's clarity and urgency on the issue of gun violence is undermined somewhat by his contradictory position on race. I also wished, at the end of the book, for a stronger call to action: one informed by all the nuance and context that Gladwell clearly believes is essential to our understanding of this most American of problems.
October 1, 2026
Two numbers from Memphis. In 1935 the city recorded roughly forty homicides per hundred thousand people; by 1985 that figure had halved. Anyone reading the local paper would have concluded Memphis had become safer. Over the same fifty years the rate of serious assaults there nearly doubled. More people were being attacked, and fewer of them were dying. The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell builds its most interesting chapter on that gap, and the explanation it offers is not that Memphis calmed down. It is that Memphis got better doctors, and everyone else took the credit.
What The American Way of Killing Is Actually Arguing
The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell opens with an emergency physician on the South Side of Chicago who has buried fifteen close friends and an older brother, all shot, and who went back to practise medicine in the neighbourhood he grew up in.
From there the argument runs through eight chapters in three parts, and it is more disciplined than Gladwell's reputation suggests. Americans think they have a crime problem; the opening pages show that robbery rates in Paris and London comfortably exceed Chicago's, and that crime and lethal violence are separate phenomena with separate causes. Americans think most murders are planned; four centuries of records say homicide is mostly an argument that escalates. Americans think they are heavily policed; Berlin, the same size as Los Angeles, has roughly twice as many officers.
The Chapter That Justifies the Book
The third chapter is the one to read, and it is the most genuinely new idea here. Modern American trauma care is extraordinarily good, for a reason nobody wants to say aloud: American surgeons get more practice with bullet wounds than anyone else on earth. Gladwell gets one Baltimore veteran to walk him through the most remarkable case of a thirty-five-year career, and to estimate that he has personally worked on something like three and a half thousand gunshot patients.
Then comes the turn. If wounds that killed people in 1970 are survivable in 2026, the homicide rate can fall while the violence underneath it rises, and a country can congratulate itself on progress its paramedics manufactured. The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell names the effect after that Baltimore surgeon and reaches for the economics of moral hazard: a few people absorb the consequences of everyone else's failure, so nobody else has to act. It is supported rather than asserted, including an estimate that medical improvements alone cut the death rate from wounds by up to four per cent a year.
He sharpens it twice. Nobody in the federal government counts how many Americans are shot and survive; a criminologist needed a Justice Department grant to hand-count four years of cases in four cities, and found three non-fatal shootings for every fatal one. And the neighbourhoods furthest from a Chicago trauma centre are overwhelmingly Black, so the same wound is likelier to be recorded as a murder depending on where the victim was standing.
Killing, Malcolm Gladwell, and the Trouble With the Rifle Chapter
Chapter one is the problem. Gladwell goes to a range in North Carolina with a law professor and competitive shooter, learns to hit a target, and then takes apart what an assault-weapon ban prohibits: pistol grips, forward grips, folding stocks, barrel shrouds, threaded barrels, mounts for grenades nobody may legally own. The 2025 Senate bill names the banned rifles across seven pages, then lists the functionally identical rifles that stay legal across ninety-six. That is fair and damaging, and his statistical point stands: handguns are used in the large majority of mass shootings and in most American gun deaths.
Where The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell overreaches is the leap from "these bans are cosmetic" to "the rifle is not the problem." The lethality claim rests on one study of 232 autopsy reports, and magazine capacity, which is the substantive part of the argument, gets handled in a footnote leaning partly on a criminologist whose gun research is heavily contested. A reader who knows the field will notice that the weakest chapter comes first, and will read the rest more warily than it deserves.
Where The American Way of Killing Gives Ground
Four things hold The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell back.
Contested scholarship arrives as settled. The argument that the militia clause was a concession to Southern slave patrols rests on one law professor's thesis and one linguist's corpus analysis. Both are real work; both are minority positions. No serious originalist reply appears.
He wants twice as many police and barely argues with the objection. The case that America is under-policed is his best-evidenced, and it includes the finding that the fewer officers a country has the more violent they tend to be. But the question of how you double a force that much of the public distrusts gets a few pages and a shrug.
The elephant never gets assembled. He promises in the introduction that the separate parts will add up to a whole and that the problem is not intractable. The book ends on a parable. There is no chapter that says what to do, in what order, at what cost.
The machinery is visible. Every finding gets a coined name, a parable and a reversal. When the evidence is strong this is thrilling; when it is thinner, the shape of the argument does the persuading.
Read It If, Skip It If
The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell is for a particular reader.
Read it if:
You want reporting rather than polemic: a gun-rights professor, trauma surgeons and a police chief all talk at length.
The idea that a falling murder rate can conceal rising violence is new to you.
You like being told that what everybody agrees on is wrong, and shown the data.
Skip it if:
You want a policy programme at the end.
Clinical description of gunshot injuries is something you would rather not read.
You have no patience for the house style, which is very much intact.
Content Notes
Sustained clinical description of what bullets do to organs. Children taught to treat wounds; an entire class who have each lost a relative to shooting. Individual killings recounted, including intimate-partner homicide. Gun suicide figures and a discussion of access to means. Slavery, a slave rebellion and its suppression, and slave patrols. Racism in ambulance dispatch. Mass shootings described, including Uvalde and Aurora. Police violence. Prison conditions.
The Verdict
The Second Amendment chapter sends him back to the Stono Rebellion of 1739, when a group of enslaved men on the South Carolina coast killed their way up a road for a day before an armed church congregation stopped them. The men who rode out that Sunday were a slave patrol, drawn from the militia. That, he argues, is the anxiety Madison was answering in Richmond fifty years later, and the sentence the Supreme Court has since read as though its first half were throat-clearing.
Whether or not that chapter convinces you, the closing pages will. The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell ends in Dodge City, where tourists pay to watch actors shoot each other, and where the real town in the 1870s put up a sign at the bridge prohibiting firearms, ran a gun check like a coat check, and hired six officers for two thousand residents. Homicides fell to fewer than two a year. The most famously lawless town in the American imagination looked at its problem and fixed it in about eighteen months. That is a better ending than a policy chapter, and a more damning one.
What The American Way of Killing Is Actually Arguing
The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell opens with an emergency physician on the South Side of Chicago who has buried fifteen close friends and an older brother, all shot, and who went back to practise medicine in the neighbourhood he grew up in.
From there the argument runs through eight chapters in three parts, and it is more disciplined than Gladwell's reputation suggests. Americans think they have a crime problem; the opening pages show that robbery rates in Paris and London comfortably exceed Chicago's, and that crime and lethal violence are separate phenomena with separate causes. Americans think most murders are planned; four centuries of records say homicide is mostly an argument that escalates. Americans think they are heavily policed; Berlin, the same size as Los Angeles, has roughly twice as many officers.
The Chapter That Justifies the Book
The third chapter is the one to read, and it is the most genuinely new idea here. Modern American trauma care is extraordinarily good, for a reason nobody wants to say aloud: American surgeons get more practice with bullet wounds than anyone else on earth. Gladwell gets one Baltimore veteran to walk him through the most remarkable case of a thirty-five-year career, and to estimate that he has personally worked on something like three and a half thousand gunshot patients.
Then comes the turn. If wounds that killed people in 1970 are survivable in 2026, the homicide rate can fall while the violence underneath it rises, and a country can congratulate itself on progress its paramedics manufactured. The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell names the effect after that Baltimore surgeon and reaches for the economics of moral hazard: a few people absorb the consequences of everyone else's failure, so nobody else has to act. It is supported rather than asserted, including an estimate that medical improvements alone cut the death rate from wounds by up to four per cent a year.
He sharpens it twice. Nobody in the federal government counts how many Americans are shot and survive; a criminologist needed a Justice Department grant to hand-count four years of cases in four cities, and found three non-fatal shootings for every fatal one. And the neighbourhoods furthest from a Chicago trauma centre are overwhelmingly Black, so the same wound is likelier to be recorded as a murder depending on where the victim was standing.
Killing, Malcolm Gladwell, and the Trouble With the Rifle Chapter
Chapter one is the problem. Gladwell goes to a range in North Carolina with a law professor and competitive shooter, learns to hit a target, and then takes apart what an assault-weapon ban prohibits: pistol grips, forward grips, folding stocks, barrel shrouds, threaded barrels, mounts for grenades nobody may legally own. The 2025 Senate bill names the banned rifles across seven pages, then lists the functionally identical rifles that stay legal across ninety-six. That is fair and damaging, and his statistical point stands: handguns are used in the large majority of mass shootings and in most American gun deaths.
Where The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell overreaches is the leap from "these bans are cosmetic" to "the rifle is not the problem." The lethality claim rests on one study of 232 autopsy reports, and magazine capacity, which is the substantive part of the argument, gets handled in a footnote leaning partly on a criminologist whose gun research is heavily contested. A reader who knows the field will notice that the weakest chapter comes first, and will read the rest more warily than it deserves.
Where The American Way of Killing Gives Ground
Four things hold The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell back.
Contested scholarship arrives as settled. The argument that the militia clause was a concession to Southern slave patrols rests on one law professor's thesis and one linguist's corpus analysis. Both are real work; both are minority positions. No serious originalist reply appears.
He wants twice as many police and barely argues with the objection. The case that America is under-policed is his best-evidenced, and it includes the finding that the fewer officers a country has the more violent they tend to be. But the question of how you double a force that much of the public distrusts gets a few pages and a shrug.
The elephant never gets assembled. He promises in the introduction that the separate parts will add up to a whole and that the problem is not intractable. The book ends on a parable. There is no chapter that says what to do, in what order, at what cost.
The machinery is visible. Every finding gets a coined name, a parable and a reversal. When the evidence is strong this is thrilling; when it is thinner, the shape of the argument does the persuading.
Read It If, Skip It If
The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell is for a particular reader.
Read it if:
You want reporting rather than polemic: a gun-rights professor, trauma surgeons and a police chief all talk at length.
The idea that a falling murder rate can conceal rising violence is new to you.
You like being told that what everybody agrees on is wrong, and shown the data.
Skip it if:
You want a policy programme at the end.
Clinical description of gunshot injuries is something you would rather not read.
You have no patience for the house style, which is very much intact.
Content Notes
Sustained clinical description of what bullets do to organs. Children taught to treat wounds; an entire class who have each lost a relative to shooting. Individual killings recounted, including intimate-partner homicide. Gun suicide figures and a discussion of access to means. Slavery, a slave rebellion and its suppression, and slave patrols. Racism in ambulance dispatch. Mass shootings described, including Uvalde and Aurora. Police violence. Prison conditions.
The Verdict
The Second Amendment chapter sends him back to the Stono Rebellion of 1739, when a group of enslaved men on the South Carolina coast killed their way up a road for a day before an armed church congregation stopped them. The men who rode out that Sunday were a slave patrol, drawn from the militia. That, he argues, is the anxiety Madison was answering in Richmond fifty years later, and the sentence the Supreme Court has since read as though its first half were throat-clearing.
Whether or not that chapter convinces you, the closing pages will. The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell ends in Dodge City, where tourists pay to watch actors shoot each other, and where the real town in the 1870s put up a sign at the bridge prohibiting firearms, ran a gun check like a coat check, and hired six officers for two thousand residents. Homicides fell to fewer than two a year. The most famously lawless town in the American imagination looked at its problem and fixed it in about eighteen months. That is a better ending than a policy chapter, and a more damning one.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 29th, 2027.
Gladwell’s latest tackles the highly emotional topic of Violence in America — and he tackles it with a shocking amount of anger and agression aimed at Americans — all 350 million of us. Gladwell’s general approach to his subjects is to (in his words) find interesting anecdotes and interesting research and pair them up. The set of vignettes in this collection do this but in a hostile and often misleading way. Hostile in that he’s clearly angry at Americans (again — all of us) literally and repeatedly calling us stupid, dishonest, “morally reckless,” and pedantic at various points in the narratives. Misleading in that none of his “stories” are comprehensive — some offer partial (but never tested at scale) solutions, many describe efforts and explain why they are a waste of time, a few contradict each other, and several leave out critical aspects of the data that could change the conclusions. I am glad I read this book and I did learn some new and relevant information, but I strongly recommend reading the book critically and doing your own supplemental research to get a fuller picture.
The bits I found interesting: Americans (according to Gladwell) think they are over policed, but in fact we are largely under-policed. A comparison of police forces in L.A. and Berlin (equal populations with L.A. a larger physical area) surprised me. 8,500 police in L.A. vs 18,000 in Berlin. This section included a good description of how a larger police force could prevent more crime and improve community engagement based on interviews with those who had run large police forces (e.g. Boston, L.A.). A dive into a program to teach young men (the victims and perpetrators of the largest segment of gun violence) how to maintain emotional control based on the “realization” that much of gun violence was based on “an exaggerated sense of moral injury leading them to take the law into their on hands.” A few dips into how gun fatality statistics are influenced on the one hand by the amazing abilities of surgeons to save victims who would have died in the past, and on the other hand by the location of trauma centers which are often not close enough to the areas that need them the most. While not productive in any sense, I did learn something from the details of the assault weapons ban — pages and pages of specific weapons banned, an even longer list of those not banned, followed by his point that most homicides were committed with handguns anyway.
The pointless or frustrating bits: Long diatribes about our “absurd” focus on the second amendment and the pedantic nature of the Supreme Court, betraying incomprehension for what the Constitution is and how the Supreme Court is supposed to make decisions (Gladwell is a British-Canadian who has lived in the U.S. since the mid eighties without applying for citizenship so maybe he missed the memo?). Conflating homicides and suicides into single gun violence statistics which give misleading ideas about where the biggest problems are. Some sideways mentions of racism without any cohesive theme — almost as though just throwing it in there.
I’ve read most, if not all, of Gladwell’s books and have enjoyed them. They are called “pop sociology” and I enjoy the surprising tidbits. However, with such a critical topic under discussion, the light-weight nature of the anecdotes coupled with the needlessly hostile tone really didn’t work for me. Read it — but spend some time thinking about what you read and maybe do a little extra research before drawing any conclusions.
There are so many good sources of relevant information out there. Here are a few statistics that I found (and found easily): There is an oft referenced meme on gun friendly states having the highest amount of gun deaths. Using the CDC data at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/..., what I found is that by removing the suicides and only looking at homicides, many of the “red” states known to be very gun friendly (Montana, Wyoming, Alaska) jumped down to the middle of the list because almost all (80-90%) of their gun deaths were suicides. In fact, California (very blue!) and Montana (pretty red!) have the exact same number of homicide gun deaths per capita. I also looked up what percentage of firearms in the U.S. were used to cause injury or fatality — according to https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-f..., this is 0.003% of all firearms. Lastly, I asked one of the AI engines to give me information on guns used in self-defense and it gave me pointers to several different surveys run by a variety of organizations resulting in a large range (70,000 - 2,500,000) of reported self-defense events, mostly guns used as a deterrant, i.e. without firing a shot. For me this helps to frame why so many people want guns and how few (and concentrated) the use of guns for violence is.
I should mention that I am by no means a “gun nut,” and I’m extremely worried about the level of overall violence in our country — not just inner city gun homicides, but the tendency towards violence with any kind of weapon, the acceptance of politically motivated violence, the excusing of violence committed by the mentally ill, and the violence committed by people who just seem to enjoy it. Some level of gun control is of course required, but it is in no way sufficient. We have a big problem with people and culture — some of Gladwell’s stories point in the right direction, but not nearly enough.
Gladwell’s latest tackles the highly emotional topic of Violence in America — and he tackles it with a shocking amount of anger and agression aimed at Americans — all 350 million of us. Gladwell’s general approach to his subjects is to (in his words) find interesting anecdotes and interesting research and pair them up. The set of vignettes in this collection do this but in a hostile and often misleading way. Hostile in that he’s clearly angry at Americans (again — all of us) literally and repeatedly calling us stupid, dishonest, “morally reckless,” and pedantic at various points in the narratives. Misleading in that none of his “stories” are comprehensive — some offer partial (but never tested at scale) solutions, many describe efforts and explain why they are a waste of time, a few contradict each other, and several leave out critical aspects of the data that could change the conclusions. I am glad I read this book and I did learn some new and relevant information, but I strongly recommend reading the book critically and doing your own supplemental research to get a fuller picture.
The bits I found interesting: Americans (according to Gladwell) think they are over policed, but in fact we are largely under-policed. A comparison of police forces in L.A. and Berlin (equal populations with L.A. a larger physical area) surprised me. 8,500 police in L.A. vs 18,000 in Berlin. This section included a good description of how a larger police force could prevent more crime and improve community engagement based on interviews with those who had run large police forces (e.g. Boston, L.A.). A dive into a program to teach young men (the victims and perpetrators of the largest segment of gun violence) how to maintain emotional control based on the “realization” that much of gun violence was based on “an exaggerated sense of moral injury leading them to take the law into their on hands.” A few dips into how gun fatality statistics are influenced on the one hand by the amazing abilities of surgeons to save victims who would have died in the past, and on the other hand by the location of trauma centers which are often not close enough to the areas that need them the most. While not productive in any sense, I did learn something from the details of the assault weapons ban — pages and pages of specific weapons banned, an even longer list of those not banned, followed by his point that most homicides were committed with handguns anyway.
The pointless or frustrating bits: Long diatribes about our “absurd” focus on the second amendment and the pedantic nature of the Supreme Court, betraying incomprehension for what the Constitution is and how the Supreme Court is supposed to make decisions (Gladwell is a British-Canadian who has lived in the U.S. since the mid eighties without applying for citizenship so maybe he missed the memo?). Conflating homicides and suicides into single gun violence statistics which give misleading ideas about where the biggest problems are. Some sideways mentions of racism without any cohesive theme — almost as though just throwing it in there.
I’ve read most, if not all, of Gladwell’s books and have enjoyed them. They are called “pop sociology” and I enjoy the surprising tidbits. However, with such a critical topic under discussion, the light-weight nature of the anecdotes coupled with the needlessly hostile tone really didn’t work for me. Read it — but spend some time thinking about what you read and maybe do a little extra research before drawing any conclusions.
There are so many good sources of relevant information out there. Here are a few statistics that I found (and found easily): There is an oft referenced meme on gun friendly states having the highest amount of gun deaths. Using the CDC data at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/..., what I found is that by removing the suicides and only looking at homicides, many of the “red” states known to be very gun friendly (Montana, Wyoming, Alaska) jumped down to the middle of the list because almost all (80-90%) of their gun deaths were suicides. In fact, California (very blue!) and Montana (pretty red!) have the exact same number of homicide gun deaths per capita. I also looked up what percentage of firearms in the U.S. were used to cause injury or fatality — according to https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-f..., this is 0.003% of all firearms. Lastly, I asked one of the AI engines to give me information on guns used in self-defense and it gave me pointers to several different surveys run by a variety of organizations resulting in a large range (70,000 - 2,500,000) of reported self-defense events, mostly guns used as a deterrant, i.e. without firing a shot. For me this helps to frame why so many people want guns and how few (and concentrated) the use of guns for violence is.
I should mention that I am by no means a “gun nut,” and I’m extremely worried about the level of overall violence in our country — not just inner city gun homicides, but the tendency towards violence with any kind of weapon, the acceptance of politically motivated violence, the excusing of violence committed by the mentally ill, and the violence committed by people who just seem to enjoy it. Some level of gun control is of course required, but it is in no way sufficient. We have a big problem with people and culture — some of Gladwell’s stories point in the right direction, but not nearly enough.
September 28, 2026
I’ve read all of Gladwell’s books, but I did not want to read this one. I’ve rarely found anything on this subject to be honest and thoughtful. It quickly devolves into hyperbolic generalizations and impractical, overly simplistic solutions. Unfortunately, several of his podcasts on the subject fit this description.
In a pleasant surprise, Gladwell largely avoids these pitfalls…until Part 3 (Moral Absurdity). He understands the importance of nuance in this topic and he’s largely successful to a degree that few volumes in this space achieve.
It’s vintage Gladwell — masterful storytelling used in service of clearly stated arguments. The downsides are present as well — over emphasis on personal anecdotes and a strange refusal to anticipate objections.
The two most compelling insights (intentional vs expressive violence and police shortages) made the book worth reading and provide genuine potential for progress in this discussion. His data driven refutation of the “Defund the Police” movement is highly compelling. That’s the good.
The bad? The glaring omission of any discussion of why so few quality candidates are unwilling to serve as police officers or how banning guns limits or prevents these weapons from ending up in the hands of those who want to use them. A clearer call to action would have been helpful.
In a pleasant surprise, Gladwell largely avoids these pitfalls…until Part 3 (Moral Absurdity). He understands the importance of nuance in this topic and he’s largely successful to a degree that few volumes in this space achieve.
It’s vintage Gladwell — masterful storytelling used in service of clearly stated arguments. The downsides are present as well — over emphasis on personal anecdotes and a strange refusal to anticipate objections.
The two most compelling insights (intentional vs expressive violence and police shortages) made the book worth reading and provide genuine potential for progress in this discussion. His data driven refutation of the “Defund the Police” movement is highly compelling. That’s the good.
The bad? The glaring omission of any discussion of why so few quality candidates are unwilling to serve as police officers or how banning guns limits or prevents these weapons from ending up in the hands of those who want to use them. A clearer call to action would have been helpful.
September 13, 2026
The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell is a discussion about how Americans seem to be ok with having mortal instruments at our fingertips and how it happened that, as Americans, we have access to guns of all varieties and flavors. It is hard to understand that we are now able to have more killing power in public places than any other time in history. How did this happen? Read this book for an explanation.
The American Way of Killing is an odd title, I think, but Gladwell tells us that most homicides are not planned so we may be looking at the problem in the wrong way. The murder rate is going down in some places because doctors are getting much better at treating gunshot wounds, not necessarily that people are shooting others less often.
Gladwell explains that automatic or repeating rifles are not the most deadly weapons in our arsenal, that most people die of handgun injuries than automatic guns. New York had one of the country’s strongest anti gun laws on the books and who was the most likely to not die because of that? They had one of the lowest suicide rates because if guns are not easily accessible, people take time to think about why they want to leave this world. The laws are changing there to be more pro gun ownership.
Gladwell also explains that many people, especially those who want to curtail the sales of guns, do not understand the differences between types of guns. The lawmakers are spending a lot of time and effort to restrict certain guns that may not be very different from ones that people do not object to. It seems counterintuitive and it is definitely worth examining. There are many varieties of guns that are virtually the same gun with different embellishments. He also tells about programs that seem to make a difference in educating those who need to react more slowly and to understand better their reactions to others before they grab a gun.
As will all his books, Malcolm Gladwell takes a topic and helps us look at it from a different angle to enlighten us. I am not sure if I feel better or worse about guns than I did before I read the book, but I am at least more informed.
Thank you to Netgalley for the copy to read and review.
The American Way of Killing is an odd title, I think, but Gladwell tells us that most homicides are not planned so we may be looking at the problem in the wrong way. The murder rate is going down in some places because doctors are getting much better at treating gunshot wounds, not necessarily that people are shooting others less often.
Gladwell explains that automatic or repeating rifles are not the most deadly weapons in our arsenal, that most people die of handgun injuries than automatic guns. New York had one of the country’s strongest anti gun laws on the books and who was the most likely to not die because of that? They had one of the lowest suicide rates because if guns are not easily accessible, people take time to think about why they want to leave this world. The laws are changing there to be more pro gun ownership.
Gladwell also explains that many people, especially those who want to curtail the sales of guns, do not understand the differences between types of guns. The lawmakers are spending a lot of time and effort to restrict certain guns that may not be very different from ones that people do not object to. It seems counterintuitive and it is definitely worth examining. There are many varieties of guns that are virtually the same gun with different embellishments. He also tells about programs that seem to make a difference in educating those who need to react more slowly and to understand better their reactions to others before they grab a gun.
As will all his books, Malcolm Gladwell takes a topic and helps us look at it from a different angle to enlighten us. I am not sure if I feel better or worse about guns than I did before I read the book, but I am at least more informed.
Thank you to Netgalley for the copy to read and review.
September 28, 2026
I have enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s previous works so I was excited to read “The American Way of Killing,” in which he tackles the issue of American gun violence. no matter which side of the aisle you sit one, one fact that cannot be debated is the face that that the United States has far more gun violence than any other advanced economy in the world, and Gladwell expertly discusses the complexity of the issue
At first I thought it was like any other essay written on this topic, but Gladwell quickly uses his sharp research and storytelling to give you important variables that are often overlooked. I particularly enjoyed the 2nd amendment chapter. The author does not only discuss the words of the 2nd Amendment, he dives into into who wrote the words (Virginia slave owner James Madison), dissecting how Madison writes, and why Madison would use the words that way.
The healthcare sections were also compelling. We meet a trauma surgeon who has lost 15 close friends and family to gun violence, and also gives out trauma kits and teaches elementary aged kids how to treat gunshot wounds until the paramedics get there. Gladwell also presents how healthcare advances have helped turn what would have been a murder in the mid 20th century, into only an aggravated assault now. American Trauma surgeons have made brilliant strides, in part because of sheer volume.
The book is not a long read, however it is dense at points where you are reading legal documents from the 17th century, or minutes of Supreme Court arguments. It stays well balanced with stories about people that have been directly impacted by gun violence. You cannot help but care for and empathize with them and their plights. I gave this book 4 out of stars and recommend it to anyone with interest in the subject.
Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
At first I thought it was like any other essay written on this topic, but Gladwell quickly uses his sharp research and storytelling to give you important variables that are often overlooked. I particularly enjoyed the 2nd amendment chapter. The author does not only discuss the words of the 2nd Amendment, he dives into into who wrote the words (Virginia slave owner James Madison), dissecting how Madison writes, and why Madison would use the words that way.
The healthcare sections were also compelling. We meet a trauma surgeon who has lost 15 close friends and family to gun violence, and also gives out trauma kits and teaches elementary aged kids how to treat gunshot wounds until the paramedics get there. Gladwell also presents how healthcare advances have helped turn what would have been a murder in the mid 20th century, into only an aggravated assault now. American Trauma surgeons have made brilliant strides, in part because of sheer volume.
The book is not a long read, however it is dense at points where you are reading legal documents from the 17th century, or minutes of Supreme Court arguments. It stays well balanced with stories about people that have been directly impacted by gun violence. You cannot help but care for and empathize with them and their plights. I gave this book 4 out of stars and recommend it to anyone with interest in the subject.
Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
October 1, 2026
This was something of a fascinating little book. Gladwell highlights some food for thought, even if he doesn't really offer any real answers. Points I found to be interesting and worthy of further consideration and research:
- Assault rifle bans are largely for show and would practically have no effect.
- Probably unsurprisingly, handguns are more deadly in shootings due to their relation to close proximity.
- Homicide numbers do not accurately reflect gun violence because of how relatively efficient our medical system has become at saving people with gunshot wounds. You need to look at numbers beyond only deaths.
- America is comparatively underpoliced compared to Europe, and more policing could potentially cut down on violent crimes given that most are crimes of passion.
I did not find Gladwell's criticism of "pedantry" to be convincing, nor am I sure he did justice to his history of the Second Amendment. He felt a bit reductionistic and simplistic at times.
This seems a decent starting point for a conversation, and some of his statistics, if accurate and accurately interpreted, are worth considering. This book is definitely a case of "the first to present his case seems right, until another comes and examines him." I'll need to see him examined, but my feeling is some of his presentations and arguments may be found wanting.
- Assault rifle bans are largely for show and would practically have no effect.
- Probably unsurprisingly, handguns are more deadly in shootings due to their relation to close proximity.
- Homicide numbers do not accurately reflect gun violence because of how relatively efficient our medical system has become at saving people with gunshot wounds. You need to look at numbers beyond only deaths.
- America is comparatively underpoliced compared to Europe, and more policing could potentially cut down on violent crimes given that most are crimes of passion.
I did not find Gladwell's criticism of "pedantry" to be convincing, nor am I sure he did justice to his history of the Second Amendment. He felt a bit reductionistic and simplistic at times.
This seems a decent starting point for a conversation, and some of his statistics, if accurate and accurately interpreted, are worth considering. This book is definitely a case of "the first to present his case seems right, until another comes and examines him." I'll need to see him examined, but my feeling is some of his presentations and arguments may be found wanting.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book is classic Gladwell -- full of interviews with a wide range of people, and facts that upset what we think we know. Gladwell breaks up the reading experience with lots of quotes, typeset to break up the visual experience. People with short attention spans can keep going!
Gladwell traces our national love of guns back to the days when small numbers of people enslaved large numbers of other people, and managed their fear with guns and militias. Gladwell contends that we're having a dishonest conversation about guns in the US, and we should be talking about different kinds of violence, and how to interrupt those patterns of violence. Also, homicide rates are down because trauma surgeons are so good that they can save people who would have died in 1940, or 1970, or even 1990.
Interestingly, he says the US has fewer police officers than comparable cities in other countries. We think we're overpoliced because small police forces are more violent, as a way of keeping order. European cities of similar size have more police officers, who them have time for community relationships and interrupting violence. (Thanks to Net Galley for the advance copy.)
Gladwell traces our national love of guns back to the days when small numbers of people enslaved large numbers of other people, and managed their fear with guns and militias. Gladwell contends that we're having a dishonest conversation about guns in the US, and we should be talking about different kinds of violence, and how to interrupt those patterns of violence. Also, homicide rates are down because trauma surgeons are so good that they can save people who would have died in 1940, or 1970, or even 1990.
Interestingly, he says the US has fewer police officers than comparable cities in other countries. We think we're overpoliced because small police forces are more violent, as a way of keeping order. European cities of similar size have more police officers, who them have time for community relationships and interrupting violence. (Thanks to Net Galley for the advance copy.)
September 30, 2026
Gladwell does not promise any solutions in his newest narrative, but paints a very bleak picture of the history and perpetuation of guns and violence in America. To me, it isn’t astounding that a nation created from violence, colonialism, and slavery STILL persists with values so many of us don’t agree with in modern day intelligence.
The harrowing modern examples of children in inner cities learning how to react medically to a shooting, the grammar issue of the second amendment, the proficiency of American surgeons in being able to treat puncture wounds best- it’s not a fun, feel good time. The shortness of this book I hope makes it accessible and easy to pick up, and opens up conversations across both sides of gun control, however I found myself wanting more detail and data, so the succinctness doesn’t work fully in its favor.
The audiobook was well done, very podcast adjacent (which makes sense as this was originally spring boarded from his podcast), easy enough to listen and absorb. Guns are such a hot button issue, and while “something must be done” is an overused phrase, I don’t know how much additional value to the conversation Gladwell has added with this book.
The harrowing modern examples of children in inner cities learning how to react medically to a shooting, the grammar issue of the second amendment, the proficiency of American surgeons in being able to treat puncture wounds best- it’s not a fun, feel good time. The shortness of this book I hope makes it accessible and easy to pick up, and opens up conversations across both sides of gun control, however I found myself wanting more detail and data, so the succinctness doesn’t work fully in its favor.
The audiobook was well done, very podcast adjacent (which makes sense as this was originally spring boarded from his podcast), easy enough to listen and absorb. Guns are such a hot button issue, and while “something must be done” is an overused phrase, I don’t know how much additional value to the conversation Gladwell has added with this book.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Malcolm Gladwell applies his signature approach to analyzing complex problems to America's unique problem with gun violence. No other country has more gun deaths than America—why?
Gladwell's thesis doesn't spare anyone embroiled in the debate over gun control, castigating all involved for the path they've taken. The pedantic (and in some cases willfully ignorant) approach taken by all parties (including the Supreme Court) to analyzing the issue has obliterated any clear path to a solution. Gladwell lays out compelling data to support his position, and as in his other books, he is hard to argue with. The result is a step-by-step undoing of several beliefs likely held by many Americans.
My only knock is that the book is essentially compiled transcripts from Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, and so if you've already listened there, there's no real reason to pick this up. Otherwise, I think this is an essential read for any American.
My full review on Barlin's Books: https://www.barlinsbooks.com/post/the...
Gladwell's thesis doesn't spare anyone embroiled in the debate over gun control, castigating all involved for the path they've taken. The pedantic (and in some cases willfully ignorant) approach taken by all parties (including the Supreme Court) to analyzing the issue has obliterated any clear path to a solution. Gladwell lays out compelling data to support his position, and as in his other books, he is hard to argue with. The result is a step-by-step undoing of several beliefs likely held by many Americans.
My only knock is that the book is essentially compiled transcripts from Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, and so if you've already listened there, there's no real reason to pick this up. Otherwise, I think this is an essential read for any American.
My full review on Barlin's Books: https://www.barlinsbooks.com/post/the...
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A quick and thought-provoking read on the epidemic of gun violence in America.
As usual, Gladwell provides a number of intriguing anecdotes and persuasive statistics in discussing why the United States is such an outlier when it comes to the possession and use of guns among the general populace. I was particularly taken with his perspective on the Second Amendment as relating to the desire of plantation owners to maintain posses patrolling for escaped slaves and safeguard against possible revolts.
However, I did wonder upon finishing the book how much cherry picking of data might have been incorporated. In particular, the link between improvements in modern trauma care and changes in gun death statistics felt a bit speculative.
With thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Company who provided a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
As usual, Gladwell provides a number of intriguing anecdotes and persuasive statistics in discussing why the United States is such an outlier when it comes to the possession and use of guns among the general populace. I was particularly taken with his perspective on the Second Amendment as relating to the desire of plantation owners to maintain posses patrolling for escaped slaves and safeguard against possible revolts.
However, I did wonder upon finishing the book how much cherry picking of data might have been incorporated. In particular, the link between improvements in modern trauma care and changes in gun death statistics felt a bit speculative.
With thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Company who provided a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
always like anything written by Malcolm Gladwell. this book about shooting and death by gunshot in America was an interesting read. it is said the Americans have a "total weakness for pedantry." instead of addressing this problem head on, instead they revert back to historical stuff that has no importance in this time in history. Americans are compared to other countries of trouble and violance like Yemen and Nigeria based on the certainty of punishment. there is an emotional component lost in dealing this anger and exaggerated moral injury, feeling compelled to take the law in their own hands and deal with it with a gun. also there is a great lack of number of police employed in cities. this author makes a case that if there were more police, then there could be early society intervention stopping the less emotional gun welding person
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I received a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for this review. I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell for several years but this is by far my favorite book he has written on the history of gun violence in America and he has some very interesting conclusions: the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution right to bear arms clause has more to do with appeasing slave owners who wanted to quell slave rebellions. Also, the fight to get assault weapons off the street does not address the number of shootings and suicides attached to handguns. He examines how emergency room treatment has lessened the number of gun shot deaths, and that local gun laws from communities, Dodge City, Kansas is cited, during the late 1800s in the western United States were more rigorous and successful than current gun laws today. A must read by all Americans who are concerned with epidemic of gun violence.
September 29, 2026
If you’re familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s work and a regular listener of Revisionist History, there’s a good chance nothing in this book will be particularly new for you. That being said, if those things are true about you, then there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s meditation on American gun violence. As an American who feels truly plagued with the consequences of the absolute ubiquity of firearms, this book provides an interesting insight, and per usual, Gladwell has me thinking about the problem in a different way. All the criticisms of Malcolm Gladwell’s books have been made, and I don’t have too much more to add. But Gladwell is a provocateur. He makes reasonable reasoned arguments that make me think it’s possible to achieve something better. And for that, I really appreciate his work.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Malcolm Gladwell is one of a kind. He writes sociology about real life cultural issues and— every time— he has a way of making me see something in a completely different way. This book is compelling and important. While most of us agree that gun violence is tragic and a huge problem in America, often no one has any solutions for it. And while he isn’t a policymaker, Gladwell is going to challenge all of your assumptions and show you big correlations that you have been missing. My mouth just dropped open, several times. And this is a problem I feel very strongly about. I don’t want to spoil any of his data for you, because I truly want you to have the same jaw dropping moments as you read. I have to say, this book changed my worldview.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
incredibly provocative and well-researched, gladwell shines a floodlight on gun control in america — how the 2nd amendment is highly misinterpreted and far from its original intent, that there’s a difference between cities with a greater percentage of crime vs. greater percentage of violence, why our entire criminal system is both ineffective and expensive, and why most gun-related deaths are more likely to be accidental, not premeditated… the arguments are so compelling and the conclusion lead me to what i basically already knew, but now understand in a more data-driven way. it’s the guns… that’s always been the problem. full stop.
thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.
Malcolm Gladwell is back with The American Way of Killing, a book that dives into the phenomenon that is gun violence in America. There are a ton of insights in this book that make a compelling argument for stricter gun laws, many of which Gladwell uses stories to make the content more reader friendly. I learned a lot along the way, with some really interesting and some absolutely devastating sections of the book. I won't spoil much of this but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the contradictions and dishonest conversations that surround gun regulation in the USA. 4/5 because this was a little too short and the sections at times felt disconnected other than the fact they were about guns in America.
Malcolm Gladwell is back with The American Way of Killing, a book that dives into the phenomenon that is gun violence in America. There are a ton of insights in this book that make a compelling argument for stricter gun laws, many of which Gladwell uses stories to make the content more reader friendly. I learned a lot along the way, with some really interesting and some absolutely devastating sections of the book. I won't spoil much of this but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the contradictions and dishonest conversations that surround gun regulation in the USA. 4/5 because this was a little too short and the sections at times felt disconnected other than the fact they were about guns in America.
September 30, 2026
Another exposé by the man who has no equal. Nobody explores and explains his subject the way Malcolm Gladwell does. In The American Way of Killing, Gladwell exposes the skewed, racist thinking that is at the heart of the American way and connects it to Americans’ love of guns, and he makes it seem so obvious. So what will come of this book? Will lawmakers and policy wonks read it and begin to think deeply about the truths Malcolm tells? Will the average gun-loving American citizen change his mind about gun ownership? Based on our history, it’s doubtful. We have another option to the gun culture that exists, but the problem is that so many Americans are unable to be reflective and consider what is being shared in this book.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic is an informative and short read about gun violence.
The author manages to navigate a heavy subject with balanced investigative research and grace. It was an insightful read with fascinating data and profound discussions. I just wish it could have been longer and provided a broad scope of the issue along with potential solutions.
Overall, it’s an enlightening read that explores guns and violence in America. I highly recommend it.
Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown, and Company for the ARC(advanced reader copy) in return for an honest review.
The author manages to navigate a heavy subject with balanced investigative research and grace. It was an insightful read with fascinating data and profound discussions. I just wish it could have been longer and provided a broad scope of the issue along with potential solutions.
Overall, it’s an enlightening read that explores guns and violence in America. I highly recommend it.
Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown, and Company for the ARC(advanced reader copy) in return for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Great look into the epidemic that is so pervasive throughout America. I won't get into all my personal thoughts on the subject but I do think this is a book everyone should check out. I'll admit that I learned a thing or two and feel like I have a better understanding on the deeper root problems revolving around the gun debate in this country. Maybe I'll add to this review in the future but, for now, go read this book!
Great look into the epidemic that is so pervasive throughout America. I won't get into all my personal thoughts on the subject but I do think this is a book everyone should check out. I'll admit that I learned a thing or two and feel like I have a better understanding on the deeper root problems revolving around the gun debate in this country. Maybe I'll add to this review in the future but, for now, go read this book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews