The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
2007 book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a 2007 book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who is a former options trader. The book focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events—and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events, retrospectively. Taleb calls this the Black Swan theory.
![]() Hardcover first edition | |
Author | Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Incerto |
Subject | Epistemology, philosophy of science, randomness |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Publisher | Random House (U.S.) Allen Lane (U.K.) |
Publication date | April 17, 2007 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print, e-book |
Pages | 400 pp (hardcover) |
ISBN | 978-1400063512 (U.S.), ISBN 978-0713999952 (U.K.) |
OCLC | 71833470 |
003/.54 22 | |
LC Class | Q375 .T35 2007 |
Preceded by | Fooled by Randomness |
Followed by | The Bed of Procrustes |
The book covers subjects relating to knowledge, aesthetics, as well as ways of life, and uses elements of fiction and anecdotes from the author's life to elaborate his theories. It spent 36 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.[1]
The book is part of Taleb's five-volume series, titled the Incerto, including Fooled by Randomness (2001), The Black Swan (2007–2010), The Bed of Procrustes (2010–2016), Antifragile (2012), and Skin in the Game (2018).[2]