Why are we so often unwilling to accept that life is unpredictable? In this brilliant book Nassim Nicholas Taleb distils his idiosyncratic wisdom to demolish our illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance and erudition against modern philistinism and phoniness. Only by accepting what we don't know, he shows, can we see the world as it really is.

'Happily provocative ... blistering ... his observations concern superiority, wealth, suckerdom, academia, modernity, technology and the all-purpose, ignorant "they" ... very quotable' - The New York Times