The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The Black Swan is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series—an investigation into uncertainty, probability, risk, human error, and decision-making in a world we do not fully understand.

A Black Swan is a highly improbable event with three defining characteristics: it is unpredictable, it carries a massive impact, and after it occurs, we invent explanations that make it appear less random and more predictable than it actually was. The astonishing success of Google was a Black Swan. So was 9/11.

Taleb argues that Black Swans lie behind almost everything that shapes our world—from the rise of religions and financial crashes to scientific discoveries and events in our personal lives.

Why do we fail to anticipate these events? According to Taleb, humans are hardwired to focus on what we already know while ignoring what we don’t. We learn specifics when we should focus on general patterns, making us vulnerable to cognitive biases, oversimplification, and false narratives.

In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we do not know. This edition also includes the philosophical and empirical essay “On Robustness and Fragility”, offering practical tools to navigate—and even benefit from—a Black Swan world.

Elegant, provocative, and universally applicable, The Black Swan will permanently change how you see risk, success, and the future.

Key Highlights

• Explains rare but world-changing Black Swan events
• Challenges traditional forecasting and expert predictions
• Explores human bias, uncertainty, and decision-making
• Offers tools to build resilience in unpredictable environments
• Part of Taleb’s acclaimed Incerto philosophical series

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