This âcaptivating illustration of the follies of trying to model and forecast the unpredictable worldâ (Financial Times) is both âempoweringâ (The New Statesman, UK) and âcompellingâ (New Scientist) as it challenges our most fundamental assumptionsâby social scientist and Atlantic writer Brian Klaas.
If you could rewind your life to the very beginning and then press play, would everything turn out the same? Or could making an accidental phone call or missing an exit off the highway change not just your life, but history itself?
In Fluke, myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas takes a deep-dive into the phenomenon of random chance and the chaos it can sow, taking aim at most peopleâs neat and tidy version of reality. The bookâs argument is that we willfully ignore a bewildering truth: but for a few small changes, our livesâand our societiesâcould be radically different.
Offering an entirely new lens, Fluke explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and apparently random events. How did one coupleâs vacation cause 100,000 people to die? Does our decision to hit the snooze button in the morning radically alter the trajectory of our lives? And has the evolution of humans been inevitable, or are we simply the product of a series of freak accidents?
Drawing on social science, chaos theory, history, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Klaas provides a brilliantly fresh look at why things happenâall while providing mind-bending lessons on how we can live smarter, be happier, and lead more fulfilling lives.
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