The process of artificial selection

Out-li-er noun

1. something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body.

2. a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.

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Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," understands the importance of timing. His new book, "Outliers," is about how culture and community are greater determinants of individual success than talent or even will. It hits the stands two weeks after a man who embodies the term has been elected president of the United States.

"Outliers' " publication coincides with the dawn of what many hope will be an era that celebrates the power of community over that of the individual. "This is not a book about tall trees," Gladwell notes. "It's a book about forests."

We are used to looking at success, Gladwell explains in the opening chapter, as an individual story. But in fact, successful people "are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. . . . It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

Gladwell chooses from a wide array of examples: Italian immigrants, hockey players, computer programmers. How is it that a group of early 20th century immigrants from a particular village in Italy avoided the high rates of heart disease that plague Americans over 65? Not genes, not diet, but a "powerful, protective social structure capable of insulating them from the pressures of the modern world."

There's an arbitrary component to such an argument at first glance. Gladwell is fond of charts that show how, for example, particularly successful Canadian hockey teams have players born in January, February or March. But this fact relates more to eligibility cutoff dates than to astrology. In hockey and other sports, these dates separate larger, more physically mature players from other, equally talented players. These older players are exposed to more training, more practice and are, no surprise, more successful.

"[R]esearchers," he writes, citing the work of neurologist Daniel Levitin, "have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours." Three hours a day for 10 years, Levitin reports. "In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again."