The Black Swan : The Impact of the Highly Improbable

What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street Crash, Harry Potter and the internet got in common? Why are all forecasters con-artists? What can Catherine the Great’s lovers tell us about probability? Why should you never run for a train or read a newspaper? This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they’re impossible to

This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they’re impossible to predict, yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. ‘Taleb is a bouncy and even exhilarating guide … I came to relish what he said, and even develop a sneaking affection for him as a person’ Will Self, Independent on Sunday ‘He leaps like some superhero of the mind’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent ‘Funny, quirky and thought-provoking … confirms his status as a guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot’ John Cornwell, Sunday Times ‘Idiosyncratically brilliant’ Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph ‘Great fun … brash, stubborn, entertaining, opinionated, curious, cajoling’ Stephen J. Dubner, Co-Author of Freakonomics

A black swan is an event, The Black Swan : The Impact of the Highly Improbable positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. In this second edition, Taleb has added a new essay, On Robustness and Fragility, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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