The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

About The Book:

The Black Swan: The Impact Of The Highly Improbable is a book that focuses on what has now come to be known as the Black Swan Theory. Through a number of examples, the author aims to show his readers how rare and unpredictable events have a deep and lasting impact on a person’s life. Human beings tend to try and rationalise such happenings almost immediately after they happen. This is an almost impossible task since such events are based on chance. A number of other topics, which relate to aesthetics, ways of life, knowledge and much more, have been discussed in this book.

The book shows you what the Wall Street crash, the invention of the wheel and Pompeii have in common. It also shows you what Catherine the Great’s lovers can show you about the concept of probability. This book is all about black swans, which are the random incidents in our lives, irrespective of how big or small they might be.

This book has been written with the intent of showing you the kind of impression events like these can have on a life. It also stresses on the fact that instead of trying to predict everything that happens in our life, we should embrace uncertainty and make the most of it.

The re-issue edition of The Black Swan: The Impact Of The Highly Improbable was published by Penguin in 2008 and is available in paperback.

Key Features

• The book gives its readers new insight into handling life’s uncertain nature.
• It includes a number of real-life happenings that help prove the author’s point.

About the Author:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent more than two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. His focus in on how different systems handle disorder.

He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés. In addition to his life as a trader he spent several years as an academic researcher (12 years as Distinguished Professor at New York University’s School of Engineering, Dean’s Professor at U. Mass Amherst).

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin UK (28 February 2008)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• Weight: 349 gm