The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb - 9780141034591

The phenomenal international bestseller that shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty

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? 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 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

"A fascinating study of how we are regularly taken for suckers by the unexpected" - Guardian

"Like the conversation of a raconteur ... hugely enjoyable - compelling" - Financial Times

"It has altered modern thinking" - The Times

"Confirms his status as a guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot" - Sunday Times

"The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works" - Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

"Great fun... brash, stubborn, entertaining, opinionated, curious, cajoling" - Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics

"The most prophetic voice of all" - GQ

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent twenty-one years as a risk taker before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical, and (mostly) practical problems with probability. Although he spends most of his time as a flâneur, meditating in cafes across the planet, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering but self-funds his own research. His books, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes and Fooled by Randomness (part of a multi-volume collection called Incerto, Latin for uncertainty), have been translated into thirty-seven languages. Taleb has authored more than fifty scholarly papers as backup to Incerto, ranging from international affairs and risk management to statistical physics. He refuses all awards and honours as they debase knowledge by turning it into competitive sports.