Joel E Lewis » Book Review

The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb

Joel — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:29:42 +0000

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Random House 2007, Hardcover, 366 pages, $9.98

The first thing I learned reading Black Swan, is that Nassim Taleb is highly intelligent, but at least twice as arrogant as he is intelligent. In the first few chapters alone, it is clear that his self-love is enough to make Narcissus blush. What is unclear in the first few chapters is how there is room enough in the book for both his ego and his grand idea (I think the swan is black because Taleb attempts at witticism and self-aggrandizing eclipse the idea, leaving the swan in near total shadow).

If I had read this book sooner after it came out, there might have been more value to it. If like me, you have read any one newspaper article about Black Swans or Fat Tails, and heard of things like confirmation and survivorship bias, there is nothing in this book for you but references to obscure works of french literature, anecdotal fictions about Italian traders and Russian authors, alongside a generous helping of Taleb’s noxious “smug“.

In a sentence: The Black Swan is a book about a man stroking his own ego through an autobiographical, rambling discourse about how he is that rare, brilliant person who can take other peoples ideas and research and act like he is the first to share them.

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Shogun by James Clavell

Joel — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:42:35 +0000



Shogun (The Asian Saga Chronology)
James Clavell.					Delta 2009, 					Paperback,				1008 pages,				$8.05

Shogun is a truly epic work of fiction. Shogun reveals the world of feudal Japan, largely through the eyes of a shipwrecked English navigator striving to break the Spanish/Portuguese/catholic monopoly on Asian trade in the name of England and Protestants everywhere. I Can’t help but steal a line from the Princess Bride to describe its dramatic sweep: It’s got “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge…Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies… Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion….” Mixed in with all the action and intrigue is a good bit of education about how completely different (and surprisingly similar) life was in the eastern and western worlds during the 1600′s. Every character introduced is developed nicely before its done, and each character introduces interesting biases and beliefs that seamlessly push the plot ever forward.

I staid up nights rushing to the end, and learned a good deal on the way without realizing it – what more can you ask for?

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The Fat Tail by Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat

Joel — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:05:09 +0000



The Fat Tail
Ian Bremmer.					Oxford University Press, USA 2009, 					Hardcover,				272 pages,				$9.47

The Fat Tail’s central argument is that businesses rarely forecast and prepare for political risks as well as they do economic ones, which is a mistake because most political risks can be found in the “Fat Tail” of probability charts, where unlikely but high impact events reside.

The first chapters make the case for considering political risks with greater weight. After than, they launch into a primer on the various types of political risk and the analytical tools used to understand and forecast them. These later chapters are filled with examples of companies that sucesfully saw and prepared for change, and those that did not. The book is great at helping frame the problem and how diverse the impacts of political risk can be, but is not of much use in taking the next step – making some risk calculations and acting accordingly. I expect their firm will see a but more business now…

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A History of God by Karen Armstrong

Joel — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:02:36 +0000



A History of God
Karen Armstrong.					Ballantine Books 1994, 					Paperback,				496 pages,				$7.64

I never got much out of Sunday School aside from the watered down bible’s stories, usually stripped of all context and religious meaning. Karen Armstrong’s early experience was similiar:

When I was eight years old, I had to memorize this catchsim answer to the question, “What is God?”: “God is the Supreme Spirit, Who alone exists of Himself and is infinite in all perfections.” Not surprisingly, it mean little to me, and I am bound to say that it still leaves me cold. It has always seemed a singularly arid, pompous and arrogant definition… I have come to believe that it is also incorrect.

Not what you would expect to hear from an ordained nun; but if you are expecting the “party” line, you are in for a pleasant surprise.

Armstrong traces the entire history of monotheism from the early Jews forward, shows how each generation reinterpreted the relationship between God and man, and how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and the faiths that came before) influenced each other. For a basic primer on the history of religious thought, I cannot think of a better first option. She presents each argument and advance with the same earnestness, providing a very balanced narrative of the evolution of religion, and always puts each new thinker in his historical and ideological context. She also includes the development of atheism, and ends with a look to how religion might be redefined in the future.

The writing is a bit dense, but considering it covers 1000′s of years of theology in a few hundered pages, that can be forgiven. If you are looking to dig a little deeper into what religion is actually about, this is a great way to start.

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