The Black Swan: Second Edition

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,...

The cheapest new copy of The Black Swan: Second Edition is €38.94 at Casa del Libro. Prices checked 2 Nov 2026

More by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

More by Nassim Nicholas Taleb