Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Sponsored Products are advertisements for products sold by merchants on Amazon.com. When you click on a Sponsored Product ad, you will be taken to an Amazon detail page where you can learn more about the product and purchase it.
To learn more about Amazon Sponsored Products, click here.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2012: Fragile things break under stress. But, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, there's an entire class of other things that don't simply resist stress but actually grow, strengthen, or otherwise gain from unforeseen and otherwise unwelcome stimuli. Taleb sees degrees of antifragility everywhere, from fasting, mythology, and urban planning to economic, technological, cultural, and biological systems. The wealth of radical thinking in this book astounds; the glossary alone offered more thought-provoking ideas than any other nonfiction book I read this year. That said, Antifragile is far from flawless. As comical as Taleb's rough handling of his favorite targets can be--academics, economists, and tourists, to name a few--his argumentative style boasts gaping holes, non sequiturs aplenty, and at times an almost willfully repugnant tone. Some readers will find Taleb's brashness off-putting; others will embrace it as a charismatic component of the ideas themselves. Either way, no one will finish this book unchanged. --Jason Kirk
Judging by his anecdotes, Taleb interacts with the economic masters of the universe as he jets from New York to London or attends business-politics confabs in Davos, Switzerland. Anything but awed by them, Taleb regards them as charlatans, not as credible experts. Such skepticism toward elites, which imbued Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), continues in this work, which grapples with a concept Taleb coins as “antifragile.” Not readily reducible to a definition (Taleb takes the whole book to develop the idea), suffice to say here that antifragile’s opposites—economic, political, or medical systems that are vulnerable to sudden collapse—tend to be managed by highly educated people who think they know how systems work. But they don’t, avers Taleb. Their confidence in control is illusory; their actions harm rather than help. In contrast, Taleb views decentralized systems—the entrepreneurial business rather than the bureaucratized corporation, the local rather than the central government—as more adaptable to systemic stresses. Emphatic in his style and convictions, Taleb grabs readers given to musing how the world works. --Gilbert Taylor
Sponsored Products are advertisements for products sold by merchants on Amazon.com. When you click on a Sponsored Product ad, you will be taken to an Amazon detail page where you can learn more about the product and purchase it.
To learn more about Amazon Sponsored Products, click here.
This is the one of two books that has literally, and I mean literally, changed my life. The way Taleb reshapes how to view risk, finances, uncertainty, and every day life has had such a profound impact that I've made more progress on my personal goals the last three months than maybe the last three years. Highly, highly, highly recommend this book. This, and "Thinking, Fast and Slow" are my only two book recommendations I make now.
Oh, Taleb. You make it so hard to not use vulgar language in my review.
This book, which introduces and describes the concept of antifragility, is pretty revolutionary. Few books have fundamentally changed the way I think about the world, and this is one of them. My understanding of risk and how to address it has shifted dramatically, and the application of the concepts discussed has yielded surprising results.
That being said, the author is as pretentious as they come. Expect a lot of fancy-pants language for no reason other than to show off, and off-topic stories to illustrate just how much better than the rest of mankind Taleb is.
For example, “We gave the appellation ‘antifragile’ to such a package; a neologism was necessary as there is no simple, noncompound word in the Oxford English Dictionary that expresses the point of reverse fragility.”
*facepalm*
It is a frustrating read to say the least. It took me a couple months to slog through this book because of how frequently I wanted to punch Taleb in the teeth, but the content is 100% worth it.
First of all, read the book. Whether you agree with Taleb or not, he has here a serious critique of serious things. Be prepared for a bit of a slog - the 5 stars is for the significance of his ideas, not his literary talent. Imagine striking up a conversation at an airport bar with a very smart, slightly drunk aristocrat who grew up in a war-torn Lebanon, returning from a conference full of people he considers spoiled and irresponsible Westerners. Press record. That's how the book reads. And that image in my head helped me enjoy the book. Taleb is utterly pissed off by an economic and political ruling class that he sees as oblivious to the fragility of the systems they are creating, and so to the catastrophes they are setting us all up for. The book is less a reasoned arguments than an impassioned rallying cry for people to stop drinking the cool-aid of economic and social quick fixes, attempts to overly-isolate people from the natural vicissitudes of life as well as from the consequences of their own actions. We learn and grow from the stressors of life ( up to a point), and this is how we become " antifragile". What I find especially refreshing is that this thesis really doesn't come across as being either liberal or conservative - Taleb isn't operating along that axis. He is arguing for us to re-value simplicity in systems, learning from and trusting our experience, taking responsibility for our actions, and being "heroic" in the classical sense of working for (and perhaps sacrificing oneself for) the good of others. It is a deeply traditional view, balancing the individual with society and with nature. Now be warned, this all comes at you in a somewhat inebriated tirade that bounces all over the map, from the mouths of Brooklyn bankers and (occasionally untranslated) classical writers, and illuminated by episodes from Taleb's globe-trotting life that can sometimes get a bit stale. But that's exactly how you have to hear it - the style is intentionally over-the-top and excessive, the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" of a former economic insider. But he has the saving graces of a sense of humor and a deep historical sense, that commands your respect more fully than just another pissed-off Fox New pr CNBC commentator with an axe to grind.
This is the type of book which truly requires some introspection and reflection on your part. You cannot take this at face value and read it truly as a work of nonfiction. While you are reading, you must imagine how antifragility and all its domains work in your particular life and lifestyle. As Taleb relates at the end of his book, look around you – what is fragile and antifragile? What likes volatility; what dislikes uncertainty? And do you yourself like variation and disorder? That means you are truly alive.
I haven't read many reviews for this book. However, I am sure that there will be a few who will complain about the grammar and syntax Taleb uses when writing the book. While disconcerting at times, you have to look past it. I wouldn't say this about most any author. In a weird sort of way, the variation in grammar and syntax truly makes you more of an antifragile reader! You are more inclined to go back and re-read many of the passages; you are encouraged to take notes. And, like most any book which is worth it's salt, it deserves a second and a third reading to truly grasp the full meaning of what the author is trying to convey.
The idea of the book is very interesting and is filled with examples and anecdotes which help clarify the concept and its implications. It is very interesting how such an important concept with clear implications in multiple contexts has flown under the radar by academics and professionals. I have read other books by the same author, had high expectations and I wasn't disappointed. However, I cannot stop thinking that it could have been written in half the pages.His mix of informal prose, references to classic literature, self-congratulation, grandiose explanations, and real-world stories are tiring at some points. It took me much longer to read than usual because I often got saturated with his style. It sat at my table for months while I read four other books in-between.
I wish there were a way to give more nuance when assigning starts to a review. 5 starts to what the book is about, 1 star to how is written.
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto)
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
![]({"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/419QSJTZ%2BbL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[225,346],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/419QSJTZ%2BbL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[324,499]})
