The Black Swan :The Impact of the Highly Improbable

3.96 ( 121,518 Ratings by Goodreads)
The Black Swan

The Black Swan :The Impact of the Highly Improbable

3.96 (121,518 Ratings by Goodreads)
paperback
Published: 28 February, 2008
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Description

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

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More Details

Type Book
ISBN13 9780141034591
ISBN10 0141034599
Number Of Pages 480
Item Weight 349 g
Product Dimensions 128 x 196 x 27 mm
Publisher / Reseller Penguin Books Ltd
Format paperback
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Media Reviews

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 *

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GoodReads Reviews

Author's Bio

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an uncompromizing no-nonsense thinker for our times. He has spent his life immersing himself in problems of luck, uncertainty, probability, and knowledge, and he has led three high-profile careers around his ideas, as a man of letters, as a businessman-trader, and as a university professor and researcher. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University's School of Engineering. He is the author of the 4-volume INCERTO (Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and The Bed of Procrustes). Taleb refuses all awards and honours as they debase knowledge by turning it into competitive sports.

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