Book Basics - Media Room - Related Reading - Your Page - DelMio in Person - Interactive
Book Basics
Good luck trying to peg author Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In the context of this book, he’s an essayist, academic libertarian, epistemologist, belletrist and researcher interested in the topic of chance. He’s of Lebanese (he preferes the term Levantine) orthodox Christian background, is fluid in French and holds an MBA from Wharton and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris. He was a trader in derivatives during the great stock market crash of 1987. Rather than panic, he felt vindicated.
In addition to challenging what he calls Platonic assumptions (focusing on the easily discernable), Taleb exercises a mischievous sense of humor. He quotes Yogi Berra often: “You can observe a lot just by watching.” (epilogism) “It’s tough to make predictions about the future.” “The future ain’t what it used to be.” He gleefully bashes everything French (his parents are French citizens and he is fluent in French, so maybe he’s entitled to). He skewers the high-on-the-hog riders: “We humans have the largest cortex, followed by bank executives, dolphins, our cousins the apes.”
Having dwelt in the worlds of both academia and business gives him a rare perspective. He notes that being called a practitioner is an insult in academia, and being called academic is an insult in business.
On theory: “A theory is like medicine (or government): often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion lethal. So it needs to be used with care, moderation, and close adult supervision.”
Take your time with this book. Don’t take it to the beach. Expect to have some assumptions challenged. And expect to discover some new concepts.
– Dave Wilson
The Black Swan. By Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
366 pages.
Published by Random House. $26.95.
ISBN 978-1-4000-6351-2.
To learn more about the author, CLICK HERE.
To visit Nassim Taleb’s uh, home page (DO NOT offer to redesign the page), CLICK HERE
Praise for The Black Swan:
“A masterpiece.” – Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, author of The Long Tail.
“Recalls the best of scientists/essayists like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould.” – Michael Schrage, author of Serious Play.
“A fascinating and challenging critique. … I thoroughly enjoyed this remarkable author’s outside-the-box mix of thought experiments, stories, and epistemology.” – Edward O. Thorp, author of Beat the Dealer.
“There’s more about the ways of the real world between the covers of The Black Swan than in the contents of a dozen libraries.” Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence.
Rebuttals, misunderstandings and gnashing of teeth
Nassim Taleb calls a reviewer’s bluff on his Web site, www.fooledbyrandomness.com:
Faker: Reviewer who appears to not have read the book (which did not stop them from writing a review)
Money Week, 4 MAY 2007, ISSUE 331. The article is glowing, but there is a remark: “He presents his ideas about unpredictability and luck as breakthrough concepts, while failing fully to acknowledge his many intellectual debts to the likes of Karl Popper.” The anonymous reviewer writing these lines could not have possibly read the book. I am convinced that all the anonymous writer did was cut & paste parts of other reviews then felt like inventing a few facts. (editor’s parenthetical: Taleb’s extensive bibliography [27 pages in itty-bitty type] does indeed cite five works by Popper.)
Taleb answers criticisms of his theory (PDF)
Taleb replies to NY Times criticisms (PDF)
