Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton explores the hidden power of analogy to fuel thought, connect ideas, spark innovation, and shape outcomes

From the meatpacking plants that inspired Henry Ford’s first moving assembly line to the "domino theory" that led America into Vietnam to the "bicycle for the mind" that Steve Jobs envisioned as the Macintosh computer, analogies have played a dynamic role in shaping the world around us—and still do today.

Analogies are far more complex than their SAT stereotype and lie at the very core of human cognition and creativity. Once we become aware of this, we start seeing them everywhere—in ads, apps, political debates, legal arguments, logos, and euphemisms, to name just a few. At their very best, analogies inspire new ways of thinking, enable invention, and motivate people to action. Unfortunately, not every analogy that rings true is true. That’s why, at their worst, analogies can deceive, manipulate, or mislead us into disaster. The challenge? Spotting the difference before it’s too late.

Rich with engaging stories, surprising examples, and a practical method to evaluate the truth or effectiveness of any analogy, Shortcut will improve critical thinking, enhance creativity, and offer readers a fresh approach to resolving some of today’s most intractable challenges.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: While this treatise on how [The Hidden Persuaders] so ably identified and flensed by Vance Packard in 1957 use the shortcuts of analogy and its partner metaphor to manipulate us is interesting, it left me a little...empty. Okay, I said to myself as I finished reading this:

According to {well-regarded psychology researchers}, metaphors create realities in people’s minds that become guides for action. Since those actions tend to reinforce the metaphor that inspired them, metaphors often become self-fulfilling prophecies.

–and–

A good analogy serves as an intellectual springboard that helps us jump to conclusions. And once we’re in midair, flying through assumptions that reinforce our preconceptions and preferences, we’re well on our way to a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. When we encounter a statement and seek to understand it, we evaluate it by first assuming it is true and exploring the implications that result. We don’t even consider dismissing the statement as untrue unless enough of its implications don’t add up. And consider is the operative word. Studies suggest that most people seek out only information that confirms the beliefs they currently hold and often dismiss any contradictory evidence they encounter.

...now what? It's the "now what" that I missed. I am glad the author delivered a reminder that we're all bathed in a soup of microwaves and advertising in roughly equal proportions. I wanted, and based on the sales copy though I would get, something that spent as much or more time pointing out how to manage my Pavlovian responses as identify them.

I was not given anywhere near enough actionable information to rate the book higher than I did. And that saddened me. ( )

An interesting book on the importance of analogies in our lives. Analogies help us a great deal to understand new things by connecting it to something we are already familiar with. For instance, in one analogy that really stuck out to me, some person sued the state of Maryland because they took his DNA without a warrant. The prosecution asserted that taking DNA from someone was "like taking a fingerprint" and that is what the trial became centered on. Fingerprinting is a standard booking practice nowadays and has been for years. How is swabbing a person's mouth for their DNA sample any different?

Some other stories that stick out was this one about copyright that happened back in 561 or something.

This monk copied a book without permission, the owner of the book sued and stated that despite the work put into it, he owned the book and any "child-book" of the "parent-book" was his also. So the monk that copied it lost the case, but went to war and killed a lot of people so he could spread the message of that book.

It was pretty cool. It contains a lot of references to books that I heard of and wanted to read, so that is rather encouraging. In any case, 4/5 stars. ( )

I received this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

This was a fun little book. Pollack is a skilled writer, and since he chose to focus on the use of analogy in persuasion, as a political speechwriter, he also knows the field well.

I could quibble with some of the examples, or the conclusions Pollack reaches from them, but that isn't really as interesting as analogy itself.

Pollack is right, analogy is widely used by almost everyone all the time, not least for decision-making. Stated more simply, analogy is what allows us to learn from experience. Without analogy, you wouldn't be able to apply past experience in novel situations.

Analogy also has a central place in the intellectual life of the West. Aristotle mentioned analogy in passing, but it was really his scholastic followers who developed the concept more fully. Without analogy, Western philosophy would have developed in a very different way.

To analogize is to think, to compare, to weigh, and to judge. Thus, to analogize well is to think well, and to analogize poorly is to think poorly. Understanding analogy is an important intellectual discipline, and this short little book points you to lots of interesting material to help you understand it better. ( )

We don’t always realize it, but analogies are a constant in our lives. They help us reason and grow. From our earliest days they helped us make those conceptual leaps that were a part of our understanding and intelligence. If we can explain something by describing a parallel situation, we can motivate, inspire and enable growth. At their worst they can create fear and mistrust and roadblock further initiatives.

John Pollack’s book “Shortcut: How analogies reveal connections, spark innovation, and sell our greatest ideas” is a breezy introduction to the power of analogy and its place in our cognitive growth.

From political debate (where they have meant the difference in an election) to that eureka moment when invention and understanding blossom, our brain is wired to make these cognitive shortcuts that have helped put us where we are today — whether for good or ill! ( )

In the last decade or so there has been a proliferation of popular non-fiction books discussing naturalistic decision making. Many came from a behavioral economics background for instance see "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely or "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb. Other books might more rightly be fit into a cognitive psychology framework such as "On Being Certain" by Robert Burton, "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich or to go back a bit further "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowlecki More recently there have even been a couple of entries from some of the primary researchers in the field of naturalistic decision making including the field including "Seeing What Other's Don't" by Gary Klein and "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. There is a lot to say on how people really making decisions.

Some of these books are interested in the heuristics people use. Others in the misjudgments. Still others focus on building models of how exactly realistic decision making occurs. There is substantial room to synthesize this literature to build models for other aspects of realistic decision making. In John Pollack's new books "Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovations, and Sell our Greatest Ideas" he attempts to take much of this literature and his own experience as a political writer to argue for the key role analogical reasoning plays in innovation, arguments, and building new ideas.

This is an interesting approach. There is substantial evidence to support the notion that complex thoughts are generally developed through the application of analogy. Seeing how one situation maps on to another and applying that knowledge, through analogy, to a new domain is one of the most fundamental skills for building expertise. So it was exciting to see Pollack's book working on that specific application of the research.

Pollack introduces his model for the relationship between analogical reasoning and thought then applies this model to problem solving, innovation, persuasion. The book then ends with a chapter on how to use what we known about analogical reasoning to make better analogies.

So why I do I begin this review with a long list of other books in the genre? Unfortunately, that is how "Shortcut" read. One long reference to other books with examples from each. The broad concepts of each chapter were interesting as was Pollack's overall model. But each chapter was essentially story after story cited from existing literature. A literature review is great and can be interesting but the connections that are needed to transform this into a developed thesis weren't there. Each chapter felt like a sequence of mini-articles. Each one was interesting and engaging in its own right; but the structural flow from each example to the next and the ultimate synthesis needed to generate the larger thesis were both absent.

Even with this problem I found it to be a good interesting read. Perhaps my own familiarity with the subject matter interfered somewhat with the read. So if you are unfamiliar, or only passingly familiar, with the literature on decision making this would be a fun jumping in point. Pollack's interpretation of the literature is sound. The writing is solid and enjoyable. Probably, if you approach the read as a collection of essays rather than a fully constructed thesis you will get more out of the book. But if you are already familiar with this area of psychology I'd suggest moving on to other works. ( )