This is an excellent book with a powerful yet simple-to-understand notion for how ideas, once created, spread like wildfire.

And it explains how an unworthy, incorrect, and even harmful idea – can spread more easily than a truth or a solution to a problem, including those ultimately caused by the former.

It breaks down characteristics of a meme – an idea that spreads like a virus – into two things.

1. infectiousness – how easily it spreads from person to person; e.g. how strong the urge is to communicate it
2. virulence – how likely it is to take hold in the belief system or actions of a person exposed to it
   
   If those sound like characteristics of a virus, that is because they are

A highly recommended read to all of the following:

1. voters
2. public speakers and celebrities
3. school teachers and professors
4. book, magazine, and article writers
5. reporters
6. politicians
7. managers
8. economists
9. fashion-followers
10. consumer and ethics watchdogs
11. high school students
12. diplomats
13. people given to rioting and group hysterics

You can learn a lot from a book like this. This is good, practical knowledge.