The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.”
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. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,” which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.
Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.
For all orders exceeding a value of 100USD shipping is offered for free.
Returns will be accepted for up to 10 days of Customer’s receipt or tracking number on unworn items. You, as a Customer, are obliged to inform us via email before you return the item.
Otherwise, standard shipping charges apply. Check out our delivery Terms & Conditions for more details.
Returns will be accepted for up to 10 days of Customer’s receipt or tracking number on unworn items. You, as a Customer, are obliged to inform us via email before you return the item, only in the case of:
– Received the wrong item.
– Item arrived not as expected (ie. damaged packaging).
– Item had defects.
– Over delivery time.
– The shipper does not allow the goods to be inspected before payment.
The returned product(s) must be in the original packaging, safety wrapped, undamaged and unworn. This means that the item(s) must be safely packed in a carton box for protection during transport, possibly the same carton used to ship to you as a customer.
