The Wisdom of Crowds

by James Surowiecki

In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

 

With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.

• ISBN10: 0385721706
• ISBN13: 9780385721707
• Publish Date: 16 August 2005 (first published 25 May 2004)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Anchor Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385721707

Reviews

[adamfortuna]

Diverse crowds make better decisions on aggregate than individuals or groups of similar experts on most topics. That's the main takeaway of the book illustrated through a number of examples. I like the idea, but some of the ideas focused on ended up not holding my interest for the time discussed.