Black Swan is the seminal book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, self-described as an essay on probability in our world. It certainly is provocative and, for me at least, is the kind of book which deserves to be read more than once to fully understand what is being said.

Taleb’s main point is that we really don’t understand our world that well at all. Significant events come along rarely enough that we foolishly become confident that we have learned from history. That we know what will happen and why. Then, we are shocked when a small change shatters this vision. Meanwhile, an increasingly large industry has been created around using idealised models to predict our collective future. Such models are anathema to Taleb. Like using a ruler to measure the circumference of a circle - simply the wrong tool!

While his examples and explanations are plentiful and thoughtful throughout the book, Taleb consistently underlines his points by mentioning his own excellence in a number of fields. Money talks, and Taleb attributes his financial success to his familiarity with the Black Swan idea. However, this point is repeated so many times that by the end I started to feel he was judging me for not being as smart or rich as him. Even Taleb admits in a postscript essay that he achieved more success in relaying his message to academics and practitioners when he applied a softer touch.

Speaking of academics, practitioners and thinkers, an astounding number are mentioned by name. This book has made it very clear to me that I have a lot of reading to do, especially of those from outside the American and Western European curriculum. Benoit Mandelbrot is singled out as a shining source of truth and intelligence throughout the book. Others are not so lucky. Paul Samuelson and Myrton Scholes, both Nobel Lauretes in Economic Sciences, receive particularly withering assessments. They have plenty of company in Taleb’s thoughts about essentially the entirety of economic academia and most market practitioners.

Again, this is book filled with a challenging idea. The time we are living in - dominated as it is by one particular event which has changed the world - should provoke us to take this idea very seriously.