At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They will be the types who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their very own over brainstorming in groups. Although they are often labeled ‘calm,’ it really is to introverts that we owe lots of the great contributions to society–from truck Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.

Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled up with about Quiet: THE ENERGY of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing this. Taking the audience on a journey from Dale Carnegie’s birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar for an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the twentieth hundred years and explores its far-reaching effects. She foretells Asian-American college students who experience alienated from your brash, backslapping atmosphere of American colleges. She questions the dominant ideals of American business culture, where forced cooperation can stand in the way of innovation, and where the command potential of introverts is often forgotten. And she draws on cutting-edge analysis in psychology and neuroscience to uncover the surprising variations between extroverts and introverts.

Perhaps most inspiring, she introduces us to successful introverts–from a witty, high-octane presenter who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Finally, she presents invaluable information on from how to better negotiate distinctions in introvert-extrovert human relationships to how exactly to empower an introverted child to when it makes sense to be a ‘pretend extrovert.’

This extraordinary book gets the capacity to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves.