The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a 2007 book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who is a former options trader. The book focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events—and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events, retrospectively. Taleb calls this the Black Swan theory.
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
