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Description:

Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a concept that will change the way you look at the world. Black Swans underlie almost everything, from the rise of religions, to events in our own personal lives. A Black Swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: it is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. And why do we always ignore the phenomenon of Black Swans until after they occur? As Nassim Nicholas Taleb reveals, we are hard-wired not to truly estimate risk, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the 'impossible'. In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know, and shows us how to face the world.

Reviews:

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail
'Mindblowing ... A masterpiece'

Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph
'An idiosyncratically brilliant new book'

Larry Elliot, Guardian
'A fascinating study of how we are regularly taken for suckers by the unexpected'

John Kay, Financial Times
'Like the conversation of raconteur ... hugely enjoyable - compelling ... Beware the Black Swan'

John Cornwell, Sunday Times
'The Black Swan confirms his status as a guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot'