A fictionalized virtual pandemic hearing opens the book, where witnesses strategically use passive voice to deflect blame for a public health crisis.

Gladwell announces his intent to conduct a forensic investigation into the darker consequences of tipping points and social epidemics.

FBI agents Linda Webster and William Rehder confront the Yankee Bandit, a robber who sets a record by hitting six banks in a single day.

Robert Sheldon Brown, known as Casper, begins organizing multiple teams of young, often coerced robbers to systematically hit banks across Los Angeles.

Casper and his partner C-Dog orchestrate 175 bank robberies over four years, far surpassing any previous robbery record in the city.

Casper and C-Dog are arrested after months of FBI investigation, and bank robbery rates in Los Angeles decline significantly.

Philip Esformes is convicted for orchestrating one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in United States history.

Sociologists Seth Abrutyn and Anna Mueller investigate a wealthy, high-achieving town called Poplar Grove and find its youth suicide rates far exceed national averages.

Political scientist Morton Grodzins identifies that white families rapidly abandon neighborhoods once a minority group's presence surpasses roughly one third of residents.

The Biogen leadership retreat at the Marriott Long Wharf hotel in Boston becomes the epicenter of a major COVID-19 outbreak.

Holocaust survivor Fred Diament and his peers establish the first Holocaust museum in the United States through persistent grassroots effort.

The 1978 NBC miniseries Holocaust airs, bringing the atrocities of the Holocaust into mainstream American consciousness for the first time.

The television show Will and Grace shifts public perception of same-sex relationships by portraying a successful, relatable gay character.

Purdue Pharma aggressively markets OxyContin by targeting high-prescribing superspreader doctors, rapidly expanding opioid prescriptions across the country.

Purdue Pharma reformulates OxyContin to resist abuse, inadvertently driving addicted users toward cheaper and more lethal alternatives like heroin and fentanyl.

Gladwell opens with a fictionalized pandemic hearing that exposes how language is used to deflect responsibility, then announces his intent to forensically examine the dark side of social contagion. The first major case study follows FBI agents tracking a bank robbery epidemic in Los Angeles, where criminal mastermind Casper orchestrates 175 robberies before being arrested. Gladwell then examines the Medicare fraud epidemic in Miami and the suicide crisis in Poplar Grove, showing how environment shapes collective behavior. The concept of white flight introduces the Magic Third, and the Biogen COVID-19 outbreak illustrates how superspreaders transform local incidents into global crises. Holocaust survivors' grassroots museum efforts and the cultural impact of Will and Grace on the gay marriage movement show how media and community action can create positive tipping points. The book culminates with Purdue Pharma's targeted marketing of OxyContin and the catastrophic unintended consequences when the drug is reformulated.

The headline events driving the book's central argument about social epidemics.

Gladwell revisits The Tipping Point's key concepts — the Law of the Few, the Power of Context, and the Stickiness Factor — to frame his new analysis.

The West Hills Bandits emerge in Los Angeles with a militarized, methodical approach to bank robbery that sharply escalates the city's crime wave.

Gangs including the Eight Trey Gangsters and the Nasty Boys adopt Casper's methods, spreading the bank robbery epidemic beyond his original operation.

Miami's transformation in the 1980s, shaped by an influx of drug money and the Mariel boatlift, creates an entrenched culture of institutional corruption.

Former Esformes associates known as the Delgado brothers testify about his fraud network, exposing the full scope of his Medicare scheme.

A real estate agent named Richard introduces Gladwell to Poplar Grove, describing it as a scenic, high-achieving community that appears almost perfect.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's research reveals that minority members in skewed corporate groups are treated as symbolic tokens rather than as individuals.

Corporate leaders Ursula Burns and Indra Nooyi break barriers in their respective fields by reaching critical mass within their organizations.

Harvard's undefeated women's rugby team dominates Princeton in a match that raises questions about how Harvard recruits globally for an obscure sport.

Harvard's ALDC admissions system grants preferential treatment to athletes, legacies, dean's interest candidates, and faculty children, revealing priorities beyond academic merit.

The Supreme Court issues a landmark ruling against race-based affirmative action while Harvard's preferences for athletic recruits remain largely unchallenged.

Aerosol scientists William Ristenpart and David Edwards discover that a small percentage of individuals emit far more viral particles than average.

Holocaust survivors in postwar Los Angeles suppress their traumatic memories, choosing silence in order to rebuild their lives and assimilate into American society.

Gay marriage advocate Evan Wolfson faces repeated legal defeats and setbacks at the state level throughout the 1980s.

Kathe Sackler testifies about her role at Purdue Pharma, struggling to identify anything she could have done differently to prevent the opioid crisis.

Pool 2 revisits Gladwell's foundational concepts from The Tipping Point before tracing how Los Angeles bank robberies spread as rival gangs adopt Casper's methods. Miami's deep-rooted institutional corruption is explored through the testimony of Esformes's associates and the city's turbulent transformation in the 1980s. Poplar Grove is first introduced through a real estate agent's glowing description, setting up the contrast with the sociological crisis lurking beneath its surface. The corporate and institutional dimensions of tipping points are examined through Kanter's tokenism research, Harvard's admissions preferences, and the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action. The Biogen outbreak's scientific underpinnings are revealed through aerosol research, while the human cost of the Holocaust is traced through survivors' early silence and gay marriage advocates' initial defeats. The pool closes with Kathe Sackler's troubled testimony, placing individual conscience at the center of institutional catastrophe.

The supporting figures, institutions, and escalating forces behind each social epidemic.

The hearing's chairwoman challenges a witness for using passive voice — phrases like 'been associated with abuse' — to evade personal accountability.

Prosecutor John Wiley describes Casper as a Hollywood-style producer who recruited and directed criminal crews with precision and scalable efficiency.

Philip Esformes publicly cultivates an image as a devout, family-oriented man while secretly operating a vast Medicare fraud empire.

Gladwell compares Poplar Grove's social homogeneity to a genetically uniform cheetah population, arguing both are unusually vulnerable to spreading crises.

The Lawrence Tract experiment in Palo Alto imposes strict racial quotas to prevent white flight but produces internal conflict and lasting trauma instead.

Damon Centola's online name-game experiment demonstrates that once roughly 25% of participants become dissenters, the entire group rapidly shifts its behavior.

Gladwell argues that Harvard's admissions preferences for athletes constitute an athletic affirmative action that escapes the scrutiny race-based policies receive.

Biogen executives underestimate the COVID-19 risk at their leadership retreat, allowing an infected attendee to expose dozens of colleagues before the danger is recognized.

Genetic sequencing traces the entire Biogen cluster back to a single infected conference attendee responsible for over three million infections worldwide.

Holocaust studies gain prominence in American university curricula, marking a broader cultural shift in how the atrocities are formally remembered and taught.

Timur Kuran's essay arguing that revolutionary surprises are inevitable helps Gladwell explain why societal tipping points consistently defy expert prediction.

After years of legal defeats, gay marriage advocates realize their movement has crossed an unexpected cultural tipping point driven by shifting public opinion.

McKinsey and Company helps Purdue Pharma identify high-prescribing core and super-core doctors as prime targets to turbocharge OxyContin sales.

Pain specialist Russell Portenoy publicly downplays opioid addiction risks in interviews and advocacy, fundamentally reshaping pain management practices across medicine.

A Sackler founding brother's declaration that OxyContin is their ticket to the moon reveals corporate ambition disconnected from looming public health consequences.

Pool 3 focuses on the moments of revelation and inflection that reshape how each story is understood, beginning with the hearing chairwoman's pointed challenge to evasive language. Casper's criminal empire is reframed by a prosecutor who likens him to a Hollywood producer, while Esformes's devout public image is exposed as a mask for massive fraud. Gladwell's comparison of Poplar Grove to a cheetah monoculture reframes the town's seemingly positive traits as dangerous vulnerabilities, and the Lawrence Tract experiment reveals that engineering group proportions can produce suffering rather than harmony. The Biogen outbreak is traced back to a single superspreader whose global impact dwarfs all expectations, while Holocaust memory is shown entering academia as a formal turning point in collective national remembrance. The pool ends deep in the opioid crisis, where McKinsey's targeting strategies, Portenoy's advocacy, and the Sackler family's unchecked ambition converge to create an epidemic that no single reformulation could contain.