David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

The general in charge of the British forces in Northern Ireland was a man straight out of the pages of Rebellion and Authority. ...

Army “should deal toughly, and be seen to deal toughly, with thugs and gunmen.” On June 30, 1970, the British Army received a ti ...

cleared, the army launched a massive house-to-house search. Disobedience was met with firm and immediate punishment. The next mo ...

populations. This was not some distant and foreign land: they were dealing with their own country, their own language, and their ...

resources, weapons, soldiers, and experience that dwarfed those of the insurgent elements that they were trying to contain, it d ...

start with in [Northern Ireland], all right.” ...

3. The simplest way to understand the British mistake in Northern Ireland is to picture a classroom. It’s a kindergarten class, ...

Stella is sitting in a chair at the front of the room. She’s reading out loud from a book that she is holding up to one side: “. ...

guessing your first reaction would be that she has a group of unruly children. Maybe she teaches in a school in a poor neighborh ...

behaved and attentive, eager and ready to learn. They don’t seem like bad apples at all. They only start to misbehave well into ...

kid, and no one else is getting in.” Her colleague Robert Pianta added: “There’s no rhythm. No pace. This is going nowhere. Ther ...

disobedient. Their view of the book was completely blocked by the little girl standing in front of Stella. They had no way of fo ...

and altogether doing whatever she could to avoid her teacher. “But one of the things we find is that this sort of thing is more ...

read the instructions aloud together. Pianta was aghast. “Just the idea that you would be choral reading a set of instructions t ...

entirely logical action, given the pointlessness of what the teacher is doing. The teacher addresses him, sharply. “Sweetie. Thi ...

come away angry and disillusioned. Why? Because the punishment is completely arbitrary. He can’t speak up and give his own side ...

speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tom ...

that surprising. Anyone who has ever sat in a classroom knows that it is important for teachers to earn the respect of their stu ...

nor mysticism.” They were saying that at that level, the decision to obey the law is a function of a rational calculation of ris ...

4. Let me give you an example. It involves an experiment that has been going on for the past few years in the New York City neig ...