On "Quiet" by Susan Cain ****

Long on my reading list, this book explores the world of introverts. Its first half contains some accounts of interesting studies, but its second half turns into a self-help book, which was not exactly what I was thinking this would be or what I was looking for. On the whole, this books reads as great mainstream commercial nonfiction, but as such it does feel like it lacks a certain amount of gravity, gravity that is hinted at in the first half of the book when it gets into its various discussions on culture.

Cain suggests in the first chapter that there was a shift in the early twentieth century away from a focus on character toward personality, a shift that is mirrored in a shift from a focus on introverts to extroverts (as such, she kind of links personality with extroversion and character with introversion, which isn't exactly a truism). Nevertheless, the point is that the American focus on extroverts, on being loud and friendly and "out there" with your desires and offerings, on sharing among large groups, means that the skills of introverts are often overlooked or ignored.

Cain backs up such assertions with finding and examples from the world of business and education, anecdotes such as that of an introverted man who had actual experience in survival skills but who in a class exercise in business school could not be heard over the voices of the many extroverts who knew much less about what they were talking about. She writes of how extrovert-centered idealism, which has resulted in concepts such as the open office and group work often result in less than intended results. Open office environments are actually less productive; group work often renders less creative solutions to problems than lone individuals often can. She writes of the financial world and how introverts tend to be more careful, less risk taking, and how the finance is dominated by the risk-taking extrovert class, which helps to forge a bubble and bust economy.

How did we get here? Dale Carnegie found confidence in public-speaking classes and went on to write classics like How to Win Friends and Influence People and taught others how to be successful, and that success was largely tailored around extrovert-type values.

From here, Cain moves toward self-help: how to deal with your opposite in relationships and at work; how to deal with an introvert kid. Much of this seems fairly self-evident or aimed at people who are at extreme ends of either spectrum.