Start reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

 
 
 

Try it free

Sample the beginning of this book for free

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

Read books on your computer or other mobile devices with our FREE Kindle Reading Apps.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
 
 
Share your own customer images

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable [Kindle Edition]

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)
Print List Price: £9.99
Kindle Price: £4.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: £5.00 (50%)
* Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT.
This price was set by the publisher

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £4.99   -- --
Hardcover --   -- --
Paperback £6.89   -- --
Audio, CD, Audiobook £30.14   -- --
Audio Download, Unabridged £11.54 or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product Description

Review

'A deeply intelligent, provocative book ... Taleb succeeds in
bringing sceptical empiricism to the masses' -- The Economist

'A fascinating study of how we are regularly taken for suckers by the unexpected' -- Larry Elliot, Guardian

'A provocative macro-trend tome in the tradition of The Wisdom of
Crowds and The Tipping Point' -- Time

'A richly enjoyable read with an important message' -- BusinessWeek

'An idiosyncratically brilliant new book' -- Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

'An idiosyncratically brilliant new book'
-- Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

'Like the conversation of raconteur ... hugely enjoyable - compelling ... Beware the Black Swan' -- John Kay, Financial Times

'Mindblowing ... A masterpiece' -- Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail

'Taleb's book deserves our attention, and our thanks' -- International Herald Tribune

'The Black Swan confirms his status as a guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot' -- John Cornwell, Sunday Times

Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

'An idiosyncratically brilliant new book'
See all Product Description

Product details

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Nassim Taleb Page
Nassim Taleb
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

› Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
497 of 526 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars right, interesting, but extremely irritating 28 Nov 2007
By Dean Swift
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.
19 Comments | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
177 of 187 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars In a nutshell: insightful but rambling 19 Jun 2009
By A. Schaffer
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!
4 Comments | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars No empirical evidence presented 26 Aug 2011
By J. Sharpe
Format:Paperback
This is an interesting read and likely worth it. The main point is there are a lot of people in finance who have no clue about statistics.

One of the key points is that many financial markets follow power law distributions. I was disappointed to see that no empirical evidence is presented to support this. So I tested it myself. 108 years data of equity returns in 5 countries (the DMS data set). There is no evidence to suggest annual equity returns follow a power law distribution. A much better fit is achieved with exponential.

Best to check oneself; free data is available from yahoo; R statistics program is free online; the fExtremes packages quickly tests if data follows a power law distribution.

Very disappointing and left me suspecting the other unsupported arguments in the book are similarly flawed.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars An a interesting article masquerading as a book 10 Sep 2009
A Kid's Review
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.... Read more ›
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A book everyone should read
I have now read this book (or parts of it) several times. It rings so true that I think it would be very helpful to teach this in school. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Andrea Edan
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book
I'm reviewing the hard copy book. I ordered and paid for it on Kindle but it never arrived!

The book is written with wit and insight, is enlightening and stimulating. Read more
Published 1 month ago by R. RESTALL
1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written, patronising, piffle
I am not as qualified as some other reviewers to judge the mathematical merits of the author's arguments but I do know, when I see it:

1. Overt plagiarism
2. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Chippy_D
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but missing something
A very good read, undoubtedly and the concept of the black swan is invaluable. The authors personal anecdotes and philosophy are probably the main interests here though, for... Read more
Published 2 months ago by anthony j morgan
5.0 out of 5 stars A salutary reminder of our intellectual faults.
Every once in a while we must be reminded of our own shortcomings so that we can retain some measure of reality. The Black Swan is very good at this last. Read more
Published 2 months ago by M. A. R. GONZALEZ
3.0 out of 5 stars It's Okay
It is Okay.
A bit too long and chewing same topic all over the place. Woudl make it shorter. Interesting point of view with some great topic for consideration. Read more
Published 2 months ago by alex petkov
1.0 out of 5 stars An important topic spoilt by a bad book
I had high hopes for this book. How best to deal with uncertainty is an intellectually challenging and interesting question with major implications for our daily lives. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jan W. H. Schnupp
5.0 out of 5 stars A totally unexpected book
Simply one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. I would have never guessed from the title or synopsis quite what to expect. Read more
Published 4 months ago by William Caola
3.0 out of 5 stars Good ideas, but a bit arrogant
A good read and an interesting perspective on statistics. However, the personal commentary and the bashing of almost all conventional statistics and economics undermines the sound... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Alex
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting perspective on risk
I'm surprised that there are so many negative reviews for this book, I was expecting more positive reviews but they appear to be fairly evenly distributed over the ratings. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Edward A. Thomson
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Popular Highlights

 (What's this?)
&quote;
the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or “incentives” for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can. &quote;
Highlighted by 99 Kindle users
&quote;
everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention. &quote;
Highlighted by 90 Kindle users
&quote;
In Extremistan, inequalities are such that one single observation can disproportionately impact the aggregate, or the total. &quote;
Highlighted by 88 Kindle users

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
Implications of the Black Swan for Management 0 7 Jun 2009
› See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 

Search Customer Discussions
   

Customers Who Highlighted This Item Also Highlighted

Look for similar items by category


There's a problem loading this menu at the moment.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

    Your Shopping Basket is empty.

    Give it purpose -- fill it with books, DVDs, clothes, electronics and more.

    If you already have an account, sign in.

    There's a problem previewing your shopping basket at the moment.

    Check your Internet connection and go to your cart, or try again.

    View Shopping Basket (0 items)
      Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. Privacy Statement Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. Delivery Information Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. Returns & Exchanges