The Black Swan
  • Published: 7 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141034591
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $24.99

The Black Swan

The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Formats & editions
Paperback
7 Jul 2011
EBook
2 Jun 2008
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Everything you need to know about what you don't know

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 predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', The Black Swan shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty.
  • Published: 7 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141034591
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to immersing himself in problems of luck, uncertainty, probability and knowledge. Part literary essayist, part empiricist, part no-nonsense mathematical trader, he is currently Dean's Professor in the Science of Uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His last book, the bestseller Fooled by Randomness, has been published in eighteen languages and was selected by Fortune magazine as one of "The Smartest Books of All Time". Taleb lives mostly in New York.

portrait photo of Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Also by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Antifragile
Fooled by Randomness
Skin in the Game
The Bed of Procrustes
See all

Praise for The Black Swan

Great fun... brash, stubborn, entertaining, opinionated, curious, cajoling

Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics

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

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

Sunday Times

The most prophetic voice of all

GQ

The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works

Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

It has altered modern thinking

The Times
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