Talk:David and Goliath (book)

Has anyone addressed the fact that, while Gladwell treats the story as history, biblical scholars and ancient historians are in agreement that it is not? In fact, _no_ story of single combat has ever been historically verified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.12.38.41 (talk) 21:17, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Critical Reception & Contents

I couldn't find any positive reviews from major outlets, but I'm sure there must be some. It would be good to have these added to the section. Also, some coverage of the actual content of the book by someone who's read it would help the article. Trumpetrep (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. My main concern here is actually not the absence of positive reviews, it is the fact that there is zero information on what this book is about. Saying nothing about its content, yet dedicating a section (the section, actually, because there are no other sections) to the negative reviews creates a strong appearance of bias while not really helping the reader, as it is difficult to understand the criticism without at least some understanding of what is being criticized. GregorB (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

If there are positive reviews from reasonably notable sources, please add them, or even link to them here and I will add them. Good Reads has it at a healthy 3.81/5, practically 4-stars out of 5, based on 50,000+ reader votes: is that considered something we can use (or is Good Reads the Rotten Tomatoes audience rating of books?)?

I looked, and the reception from big media seems to be resoundingly, uniformly negative. That can happen. If so, what can be done? I will continue to look, and hopefully this reply will get fresher input. Eventually (in a few days or couple of weeks, perhaps), I'd like to remove the "undue weight" tag all the way from June 2014.

I will try to address the contents issue, which is a separate one. --Tsavage (talk) 17:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

UPDATE: Started content coverage with new "Summary" section. It can be fleshed out with the book's various rules, also, more detailed references to the studies Gladwell sites. Added a lead sentence to the "Critical reception" section - a search through a few pages Google results for "david and goliath review" and I couldn't find a single positive one, although there must be ONE out there. In any case, for now, the coverage as it stands does NOT seem to be inaccurately weighted to the negative. I did also add bestseller status, and the positive (4-star) Goodreads rating.

Will wait a couple of days, and if nothing comes up, I'll remove the "undue weight" tag. --Tsavage (talk) 04:09, 29 March 2015 (UTC)