David and Goliath employs individual case studies and comparison to provide a wide range of examples where perceived major disadvantages in fact turn out to be the keys to the underdog Davids' triumph against Goliath-like opponents or situations. In one arc, Gladwell cites various seeming afflictions that may in fact have significantly contributed to success, linking dyslexia with the high-flying career of lawyer David Boies, and the loss of a parent at an early age with the exceptional research work of oncologist Emil "Jay" Freireich. These anecdotal lessons are anchored by references to research in the social sciences.
Other examples include: Vivek Ranadive, and a middle school girls' basketball team in Redwood City; Teresa DeBrito, and the impact of class size regulations; Caroline Sacks, and choosing between going to a top-tier college or a second-tier college; David Boies and how he still has a great career despite having or perhaps because of his dyslexia or a desirable difficulty; Jay Freireich and his cancer research, London bombings in World War II, and the effect of "remote misses" on the city's morale and a person's courage; activist Wyatt Walker and how he and Martin Luther King Jr. were able to make the Birmingham riot of 1963 a historically significant event in the civil rights movement using Brer Rabbit-like tactics; Rosemary Lawlor and how the Northern Irish police's reaction to religious riots in Belfast in 1969 led to a 30-year conflict called The Troubles, and contrasting this to how a police officer in New York City created a program that connected with troubled youths and their families; how Mike Reynolds' reaction to a family member being murdered led to the California Three-strikes law and how Wilma Derksen's reaction led to a completely different result; and André Trocmé, a pastor in a small town in the French mountains Le Chambon-sur-Lignon that stood up to the Nazi regime and harbored Jewish refugees.
