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  • Published: 1 December 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141985022
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

The Bed of Procrustes

Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms




An updated edition with more aphorisms from one of our most iconoclastic thinkers

In a climate when iconoclasm is the smartest intellectual stance - whether against bankers, traders, politicians, the energy industry, or journalists - one of today's most prominent rabble-rousers gives his quick-witted and snappy guide to questioning the status quo.

With characteristic panache and brio, Taleb uses aphorisms to condense his rambunctious ideas and style. This is the perfect reference for anyone searching for the right questions to ask.

  • Published: 1 December 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141985022
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

About the author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent twenty-one years as a risk taker before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical, and (mostly) practical problems with probability. Although he spends most of his time as a flâneur, meditating in cafés across the planet, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. His books, part of a multivolume collection called Incerto, have been published in forty-one languages. Taleb has authored more than fifty scholarly papers as backup to Incerto, ranging from international affairs and risk management to statistical physics. Having been described as “a rare mix of courage and erudition,” he is widely recognized as the foremost thinker on probability and uncertainty. Taleb lives mostly in New York.

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Praise for The Bed of Procrustes

Like Twain and Wilde before him, Taleb eats paradoxes for breakfast... The aphorism is Taleb to a tee. It showcases his wit and learning, and provides ways to fillet his enemies. All his usual suspects are present to be corrected: bankers, fools, politicians, journalists... Present, too, are his heroes: the curious, the intellectually anarchistic, the idle philosopher

James Kidd, Independent on Sunday

[A] quirky, entertaining collection of aphorisms, covering everything from the web to the injuriousness of doing too much work... a wry, often hila­rious glimpse

Robert Collins, The Times