The Lewisization/Gladwellization of social science

Lewisization and Gladwellization are synonyms for abuse of social science in the service of readability, or what one might prefer to call narrative-arcification. Lewis’ Flash Boys is the latest and most damaging because, while the book hovers around a real problem in financial markets related to high-frequency trading, it doesn’t identify it clearly or explain the need to regulate–indeed, one could finish the book thinking that the market cured itself.

I wanted to write about this but I can’t improve on Felix Salmon’s sparkling review and blog posts. I made an argument similar to Salmon’s in this piece written with Glen Weyl, but you can’t do better than read Salmon.