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 principle 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.
- ISBN10 1846140455
- ISBN13 9781846140457
- Publish Date 1 June 2007
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 21 October 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Allen Lane
- Format Paperback
- Pages 400
- Language English