Book Review-Range By David Epstein

This is a long-awaited publication for me. David Epstein wrote one of my favorite books about the nature of sports, The Sports Gene. There had been plenty of publicity regarding his followup, Range. This book takes on the cult of the specialist, as Epstein puts it. He is specifically targeting the societal and cultural domination of the specialist versus the generalist. This discussion seems to be following me around, as I read three books in succession which cites Isaiah Berlin’s essay citing the Greek poet Achilochus when he said that: “The Fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows many things.” Berlin was making the point regarding the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and whether Tolstoy, and hos War and Peace was writing as a fox or as a hedgehog. One can, and many have, extrapolated the concept to talk about people and their approach to problems and their ability to analyze and solve problems. Epstein comes down squarely on the side of the fox, whereas he sees the world as being predisposed to and is filled with hedgehogs. He does go into a bit of details about how that came to be in the early chapters. The main thrust of the book is to discuss whether the specialist is necessarily the best world view for someone who is operating as a solver of complex problems. Epstein structures the book simply: he lays out the problem and with each chapter he makes his case by telling stories that are collected together thematically in each chapter. The first few chapters lay out the premise of his argument and each succeeding chapter presents a new theme which supports Epstein’s argument. He is meticulous in presenting anecdotes as well as research results. He does an excellent job of presenting the supporting stories with great story telling skills and allows the reader to become absorbed in the narrative. He also delves into other ideas which are quite recent to bolster his point: he goes into enough details about the Daniel Kahneman book Thinking: Fast and Slow, Angela Duckworth’s Grit, as well as Carole Dweck’s Mindset, delving into the gist of those books and using those concepts to argue his own theme. He also takes on the popular but misrepresented 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, in fact he has convinced Gladwell of his own argument. This is a very nice read and causes one to think about each of the chapters separately while never losing track of the overarching theme that Epstein had presented to us. Indeed, this is one of the major reasons that I recommend this book: it never loses track of the main argument, returning to it regularly enough to encourage thought but is never overzealous in reiterating the main theme. The reader feels like they are on a journey through many different topics while also assured that there is a purpose to this journey. It is a very quick read; the writing moves along nicely while it also allows for slower and deeper contemplation of each chapter.