The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

It has taken me quite some time to sit down to write this review. I wanted to make sure my initial impression of The Black Swan was the impression I am willing to commit to writing.

First (and most importantly), I enjoyed the book's premise. I work in disaster preparedness and I enjoy reading about various ways to view improbable events. I spend a fair amount of time in my professional life comparing probability and severity and further thinking about how to communicate those thoughts to clients who may or may not regularly think about potential emergencies in such a way. Taleb's assertion that we are at least as threatened by what we don't know as we are by those threats of which we are aware is one of those points that should be repeated in disaster planning meetings again and again. Second, I believe the author to have done an admirable job of balancing highly technical mathematical ideas and accessibility for the reader.

Several reviewers from a variety of other websites criticized Taleb for including anecdotes about such characters as Yevgenia Krasnova (given the character's status as fictional). I will admit I initially found these inclusions jarring, but once I acknowledged it as a stylistic way for the author to present his material, I took no issue with their inclusion. Fictional examples do not dilute the believability of the data-based material Taleb presents. Several points made by the text highlight the often subtle nature of recognizing black swans. The black swan could be a product of incremental changes over long periods of time. The use of extreme fictional examples, then, are pithy ways to convey complex ideas over the course of a few pages.

The primary objection I have with this book is the almost snarky tone with which it is written. I can appreciate injections of humor, but to read quibs on seemingly every other page toward most academic fields was a bit much. I can appreciate disdain for certain subjects and I see no reason why an author should steer clear of acknowledging them. Any comedian, though, will tell you that over-using the same joke spoils its humor.

I am not in a position to recommend this book to anyone. I am glad I read it and I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone else from reading it. However, one should be aware of what she/he is getting into before starting it.