There's a hunger for the big one - the idea that will make sense of the world. In the absence of religion, culture or national purpose, people seize on consoling stories, grand simplifications providing opinions, perspectives, a feeling that their life is not entirely without meaning.
The big idea might be anything - a way to live or work, a crusade or a new theory of the underlying truth of things. But it must, first, be a book. Books are still, in spite of all the competing technologies, the most persuasive and authoritative medium. Second, it must be big enough to fill the mind with wonder or determination. Thus, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point offers a way of understanding the manner in which successful ideas