I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s work. I’ve always found his books to be well researched, insightful and, even if one may disagree with his viewpoint, paradigm-shifters. Revisionist History on the other hand is a huge disappointment. It’s shockingly ill- researched and lacks in depth. In the first episode, Gladwell tries to make a point about misogyny. Lamely. For the political context, he uses the ex-Australian PM, Julia Gilliard as a case in point. With emotion almost choking his voice, he portrays her as the victim of ‘boys’ club politics’ - a woman who stood up against odds to become the PM but was removed due to gender politics. He includes Gilliard’s rant in Parliament ‘I am a victim of gendered bias’, and cites the jibes made by Tony Abbott against Gilliard, possibly to invoke sympathy from the listener and to prove his point. But strikingly, he very conveniently omits to inform of a crucial fact - Ms. Gilliard was never elected PM by the Australian people. In fact, she usurped that position by staging an overnight coup against her own party colleague and the sitting PM, Kevin Rudd. And, three years later, arguably, fed-up with her terrible policy decisions and unilateral attitude, her party decided to bring back Kevin Rudd. Moreover, Gladwell’s citing of Tony Abbott’s jibes are laughable. Abbott is from the opposition. It’s expected that he will pull her down; not because she’s a woman, but because she’s from the opposition! Gladwell ends the episode by mentioning a partial list of countries that have had only one female leader till now. Notably, he fails to mention India - the world’s biggest democracy. Gladwell continues to indulge in confirmation biases unabated in other episodes as well. After a few episodes, his superficial research, the dramatic music and repetitive assertions turned from amusing to annoying. I gave up. Incredulous at this childish attempt by an iconic author making his podcast debut.
