我iPad上的Kindle应用显示，沃尔特•艾萨克森的《史蒂夫•乔布斯传》（Steve Jobs）我刚刚读了46%，但是这些足以让我作出判断，马尔康姆•格拉德威尔在这期《纽约客》（New Yorker）中的书评抓住了这本书以及乔布斯本人的精髓。

    格拉德威尔认为，乔布斯本质上是18世纪或19世纪初的工程师们在信息时代的化身，正是这些工程师们发明、完善了自动纺纱机，把英国推向了工业革命的前沿。经济学家拉尔夫•迈森赞尔和乔尔•莫基尔在最近发表一篇文章中写道，乔布斯为世界提供了“四两拨千斤的伟大发明”。

    格拉德威尔的观点非常有力，而艾萨克森的传记却并没有提出这样的观点。不过，格拉德威尔书评中赋予这个观点以血肉的正是艾萨克森辛苦得来的一手资料，它们生动翔实而又不为外人所知。

    我认为，任何一个对苹果公司（Apple）创始人感兴趣的人都应该去读一读艾萨克森的书。但是，如果想要快速了解史蒂夫•乔布斯极端复杂的个性，格拉德威尔的书评是最好的选择。

    译者：赵萌萌

    I'm only 46% of the way through Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs, according to the Kindle app on my iPad, but I've read enough to recognize that Malcom Gladwell has captured the essence of the book -- and the man -- in his 3,000-word review in the current New Yorker.

    Gladwell's thesis is that Jobs, at heart, was an information-age version of those 18th and early 19th century engineers who put Britain in the forefront of the industrial revolution by creating and perfecting the automatic mule for spinning cotton. Such men, according to a recent article by economists Ralf Meisenzahl and Joel Mokyr, provided the "micro inventions necessary to make macro inventions highly productive and remunerative."

    It's a strong thesis -- one that Isaacson doesn't offer his readers -- but what bring it to life in Gladwell's piece are the intimate and revealing details that he lifts from Isaacson's painstaking reporting.

    I believe that anybody who is curious about the man who built Apple (AAPL) ought to read Isaacson's book. But if you want a quick hit to the get the flavor of Steve Jobs in all his terrifying complexity, Gladwell's review is the best entry point I've seen to date.