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Review
Great fun … brash, stubborn, entertaining, opinionated, curious, cajoling (Freakonomics )
An idiosyncratically brilliant new book (Sunday Telegraph )
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 )
In the tradition of The Wisdom of Crowds and The Tipping Point (Time )
An idiosyncratically brilliant new book (Sunday Telegraph )
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 )
In the tradition of The Wisdom of Crowds and The Tipping Point (Time )
John Kay, Financial Times
`Hugely enjoyable - compelling'
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
449 of 477 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Taleb has one good idea, a great idea even, and an infinite number of ways of talking about it. It is essentially the same idea as his last book, Fooled by Randomness: namely that life does not behave with regularity. Those who think it does, he says, will always be tripped up by the unexpected. Black Swan extends that idea, beyond the financial markets he concentrated on in Randomness, to just about all walks of life. He is a magpie for anecdote and stray pieces of supporting evidence wherever he can find them. He calls all this 'skeptical empiricism'.
The qualification is that his big idea is not original, though his numerous examples do help bring home its ubiquity. More problematically, he overstates its usefulness. For when it comes to calling your next move, the unpredictable and the unexpected are, by definition, not things we can anticipate. And though he is right that in the long run there will undoubtedly by high impact improbably events, it is also true, as Keynes said, that in the long run we are all dead: organising your life on the principle that something radical might come along doesn't solve the everyday problem of what to next.
In short, he exaggerates his own insight and the authority it gives him. That's a wicked irony, for the chief target of his ire is those with an exaggerated sense of insight and control over their lives.
Oh, and the tone... Taleb wants to be seen as a radical iconoclast. Every sentence drips righteousness and often irritation. He is the strutting, impatient sage, the rest of us blinkered morons. Apparently he doesn't like his editors trying to change this. A word of advice to the author: if you want your advice heeded, don't shout and sneer at your audience. For this reason, an interesting thesis, but in the end a wearisome read.
The qualification is that his big idea is not original, though his numerous examples do help bring home its ubiquity. More problematically, he overstates its usefulness. For when it comes to calling your next move, the unpredictable and the unexpected are, by definition, not things we can anticipate. And though he is right that in the long run there will undoubtedly by high impact improbably events, it is also true, as Keynes said, that in the long run we are all dead: organising your life on the principle that something radical might come along doesn't solve the everyday problem of what to next.
In short, he exaggerates his own insight and the authority it gives him. That's a wicked irony, for the chief target of his ire is those with an exaggerated sense of insight and control over their lives.
Oh, and the tone... Taleb wants to be seen as a radical iconoclast. Every sentence drips righteousness and often irritation. He is the strutting, impatient sage, the rest of us blinkered morons. Apparently he doesn't like his editors trying to change this. A word of advice to the author: if you want your advice heeded, don't shout and sneer at your audience. For this reason, an interesting thesis, but in the end a wearisome read.
150 of 159 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There are many reviews here already, so I'll keep this short:
- Content: makes insightful points on limitations of our knowledge, human temptation to identify false trends and narratives, follow herd mentality, blindly follow 'experts', and so forth. He calls this 'skeptical empiricism'.
- Style: long-winded and rambling, skipping from personal stories from Lebanon, to parables intended to represent the author, to dull discussions on history of mathematics. I didn't mind it, but some readers hate it.
- Author: massively arrogant and up himself. Thinks he's had the best idea since sliced bread. He's got a good idea, but he's not the first or the only one, just the one with the biggest mouth.
- Other reads: there are better books out there on similar subjects. John Kay (of the FT) writes essays from a similar position, much more concisely and more to the point.
Hope that helps!
- Content: makes insightful points on limitations of our knowledge, human temptation to identify false trends and narratives, follow herd mentality, blindly follow 'experts', and so forth. He calls this 'skeptical empiricism'.
- Style: long-winded and rambling, skipping from personal stories from Lebanon, to parables intended to represent the author, to dull discussions on history of mathematics. I didn't mind it, but some readers hate it.
- Author: massively arrogant and up himself. Thinks he's had the best idea since sliced bread. He's got a good idea, but he's not the first or the only one, just the one with the biggest mouth.
- Other reads: there are better books out there on similar subjects. John Kay (of the FT) writes essays from a similar position, much more concisely and more to the point.
Hope that helps!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, once an ex-trader, is now Professor of the Sciences of Uncertainty (what a job title!).
The basic idea behind the book is that people ignore highly improbable events because they are unpredictable. However some of these event can have a massive impact, and in these cases people then try to suggest that it was after all predictable. The book is topical because it argues that traders and financial markets ignore the unpredictable and don't even learn from past mistakes (however this book is not an analysis of the recent meltdown in financial markets). The author argues that the "unlikely" tail of a distribution of likely events is disproportionately important. I would have thought everyone knew that, even if we tend to be bad at estimating the exact size of "rare" risks.
There are literally 100's of reviews on this book, and opinions are very divergent. My guess is that the more people know about the ideas of uncertainty and predictability the more negative their review. For others, every line and anecdote is a revelation. The most astute reviewers accept that randomness produces unpredictability, but they understand that we must build our lives around a good degree of predicability. We all accept that the author does a reasonably job describing (with lots of repetition) this situation but does nothing to tell us how to cope with and better manage uncertainly and its consequences. Lets face it, we build homes even if they might be struck by lightning, but we try to mitigate their potential impact through good building practices and we also create emergency service to help out when such random and unpredictable events occur (in my opinion what was missing in the recent mess in financial markets was the understanding of good practices enforced through a strong regulator). I also agree with those reviewers who found the authors tone at times irritating, as if he has the word of God and people are just not intelligent enough to listen to him.
To conclude, I like the overall idea behind the book, but I was expecting a real analysis and some suggestions as to how to understand and better manage rare and catastrophic events. But sadly all a got was a short article masquerading as a book.
The basic idea behind the book is that people ignore highly improbable events because they are unpredictable. However some of these event can have a massive impact, and in these cases people then try to suggest that it was after all predictable. The book is topical because it argues that traders and financial markets ignore the unpredictable and don't even learn from past mistakes (however this book is not an analysis of the recent meltdown in financial markets). The author argues that the "unlikely" tail of a distribution of likely events is disproportionately important. I would have thought everyone knew that, even if we tend to be bad at estimating the exact size of "rare" risks.
There are literally 100's of reviews on this book, and opinions are very divergent. My guess is that the more people know about the ideas of uncertainty and predictability the more negative their review. For others, every line and anecdote is a revelation. The most astute reviewers accept that randomness produces unpredictability, but they understand that we must build our lives around a good degree of predicability. We all accept that the author does a reasonably job describing (with lots of repetition) this situation but does nothing to tell us how to cope with and better manage uncertainly and its consequences. Lets face it, we build homes even if they might be struck by lightning, but we try to mitigate their potential impact through good building practices and we also create emergency service to help out when such random and unpredictable events occur (in my opinion what was missing in the recent mess in financial markets was the understanding of good practices enforced through a strong regulator). I also agree with those reviewers who found the authors tone at times irritating, as if he has the word of God and people are just not intelligent enough to listen to him.
To conclude, I like the overall idea behind the book, but I was expecting a real analysis and some suggestions as to how to understand and better manage rare and catastrophic events. But sadly all a got was a short article masquerading as a book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An insight into randomness and a critique of authorities in science
I read several reviews left here by other people and found it very ironic that everybody were so annoyed by the tone of the author. Read more
Published 4 days ago by Lady Z
The tocsin beat of his message dulls the senses
If you are someone wedded to inductive logic and rest content in the belief that, since all the swans you have seen are white, all swans are white, then a visit to Australia will... Read more
Published 19 days ago by Andrew Kennedy
Judgamental, unreadable, and irritating
I couldn't finish this book after trying twice. The main reasons are:
1. The author makes unecessary, judgamental, and discriminating comments (he deems europeans as museum... Read more
1. The author makes unecessary, judgamental, and discriminating comments (he deems europeans as museum... Read more
Published 1 month ago by laatr
Garbage of the worst kind.
Taleb takes an idea, that some events are random, cannot be predicted but have a major impact. Duh! There are such events of course - a volcanic eruption, an earthquake or a comet... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Iphidaimos
The Second Coming of Sextus Empiricus?
Fellow readers of The Black Swan will be acquainted with Sextus Empiricus. Sextus belonged to the ancient Sceptical school that stretched from 400 B.C. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Peter Cotton
An interesting theory, an irritating man
The term Black Swan originates in the belief that there was no such thing - an impossibility. Then explorers discovered Australia, where they found a lot of Black Swans. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Stephen Hudson
Brilliant insight into how we mispercieve our world.
Taleb gives a view of the world that rejects the conventional views of how Capitalism works. His contention that our lack of real understanding of risk flaws much of our logic... Read more
Published 6 months ago by lorraine
How to Become a Millionaire
An excellent book. Did you ever wonder how a 16 year old can become a millionaire and a nuclear physicist can barely pay the rent? Read more
Published 7 months ago by Charles Wahab
A well padded bird
Prompted by this book, the term "Black Swan Event" has come into popular use when discussing risk, so I thought it would make for an interesting read. It isn't. Read more
Published 8 months ago by A. K. Sparrow
Old MacDonald had a farm
RIght. I'll be brief.
It took me a year to read the book. I kept it in the toilet and read a few pages everytime I had a dump (Im being blunt but thats the truth!). Read more
It took me a year to read the book. I kept it in the toilet and read a few pages everytime I had a dump (Im being blunt but thats the truth!). Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. R. O'regan
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