Susan Cain Quiet Power

Being an introvert herself, Susan Cain managed to write a descriptive book about such a delicate and sensitive topic with the achievement of her goal to get her message across. Researching about the topic in extreme depth and traveling to different places to first understand the topic herself, Cain managed to write this book, following it with another one; Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and co-founded the Quiet Revolution (Media Kit). Her extensive research on the topic made its appearance in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and such other publications (Media Kit).

Explaining the actual meaning behind what is classified as a socially unacceptable trait, Cain wrote about how introversion is largely
She explained how in certain situations separating oneself from the society is actually better, and that not everything can be done in the presence of or with other people. Adding on to her concept, later on in the book, she came back to the importance of introversion in the society. She claimed it to be just as powerful, but a gentler kind of power, one classified as the ‘soft power’ (Cain 181). This is when Cain speaks about the differences between the Western and Eastern societies, and the difficulties that Asian-Americans have to face. After meeting with such students, Cain explained how the cultural values influence one’s approach to life. The Asian societies are more subtle and so the children are brought up that way; there is nothing wrong with being quiet or reading too much. One student that Cain introduces the reader to simply puts it as “It’s inbred in us to be more quiet” (Cain 184). To prove her point further, Cain included a few Eastern proverbs (along with the complimentary Western one’s). One by Lao Zi beautifully summarizes the differences in cultural view, just with the help of these simple words “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know” (Cain 188). The purpose behind talking about places where introversion is valued is to help one realize that it is also a preferable trait in some
The concepts although described brilliantly are too broad. Even though she clearly mentioned in the staring that she would not stick to ‘definitions’ (Cain 15), it is hard at points to understand how Cain perceives the terms and concepts, and so it makes it hard for the reader to link Cain’s ideas with their own understanding. Along with this, while talking about the differences between the Eastern and Western culture, Cain focuses mainly on two countries; China and America, and mainly disregards the other. Whether because of size or influence, representing huge parts of the world by just two countries lowers the quality of her argument in her section in spite of its strength. In my opinion, however, the rest of the wonderful things about the book overshadow her seemingly generic conceptions. Nevertheless, personally, I loved the book. It gave me answers that none others had ever given before. Growing up in a quieter society, and then moving to the world’s most extroverted nation was a challenging experience. I found myself relating to most of the what Cain wrote, and it helped me to understand my own life better. Any other introvert would find himself doing the same, and being completely absorbed into the book. However, the book is not just written for introverts who want to value themselves, it is written for every member of the society. I firmly believe this is a book that should be read by all different people in