Includes index.

Introduction: "Step out of the car!" -- Part one: Spies and diplomats: two puzzles. Fidel Castro's revenge ; Getting to know der Führer -- Part two: Default to truth. The queen of Cuba ; The holy fool ; Case study: The boy in the shower -- Part three: Transparency. The Friends fallacy ; A (short) explanation of the Amanda Knox case ; Case study: The fraternity party -- Part four: Lessons. KSM: what happens when the stranger is a terrorist? -- Part five: Coupling. Sylvia Plath ; Case study: The Kansas City experiments ; Sandra Bland.

The popular podcast host and author explores how people interact with strangers and why these exchanges often go wrong, offering strategic tips for more accurate and productive interactions. Spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers - to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines to illustrate that people size up the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of those they don't know both wrongly and with misplaced confidence.-- Provided by Publisher.