The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" cover art

The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"

Incerto, Book 2

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

$8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Get this deal
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
More purchase options

The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"

Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Narrated by: Joe Ochman
Get this deal

$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 15, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Buy Now for $32.48

Buy Now for $32.48

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,” which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.

Includes a bonus pdf of tables and figures. Corporate & Public Finance Insurance Personal Success Business Management Thought-Provoking Leadership Capitalism
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

What the critics say

Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“The most prophetic voice of all.”—GQ

Praise for The Black Swan

“[A book] that altered modern thinking.”—The Times (London)

“A masterpiece.”—Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, author of The Long Tail

“Idiosyncratically brilliant.”—Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times

“The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works.”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate

“[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne. . . . We eagerly romp with him through the follies of confirmation bias [and] narrative fallacy.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Hugely enjoyable—compelling . . . easy to dip into.”—Financial Times

“Engaging . . . The Black Swan has appealing cheek and admirable ambition.”—The New York Times Book Review
All stars
Most Relevant
I had a general knoedge of the concelt and the book but this was nothing compared to what I actually learned through the book. The whole illusion of knowledge and ability to forecast plus so many intriguing philosophical ideas. the voice of the narrator was very good and consistent with the expected tone for this material.
Thanks Nassim. love to read more of your books!

Revolutionalizing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of the most impactful books I have read in my life. I remember that I was a young adolescent, confused about the world around me, when I picked this up for a read. Little did I know at the time that the seeds to my understanding of reality were planted during my reading of this.

Impactful lessons on randomness, reality, and nature

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have to re listen to this one and to read the physical book several times, because NNT's books are not easy to grasp on the first pass.

NNT is not for everyone

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
At first it might seem walkey-talkey, but NNT walks his talk with rigorous math too.

Prepare to be destroyed (and reborn)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
it was a fantastic experience listening to this book, although the first a few chapters were a little vague for me but once I understood the points Mr. Taleb making, I was blown away by them!

amazing book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews