Skip to content
Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future (Hardback)
  • Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future (Hardback)
zoom

Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future (Hardback)

(author), (author)
1 Review Sign in to write a review
£25.00
Hardback 544 Pages
Published: 05/03/2020

This product is currently unavailable.

  • This item has been added to your basket
Waterstones Says

In turbulent times such as those we are currently living through, the uncertainty of the future can seem truly terrifying. Kay and King’s incisive, rigorously researched volume challenges the accepted strategies used to cope with uncertainty and utilises many cogent examples from history, philosophy and economics to argue for a radical new model for embracing the unknown.

Longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2020

Uncertainty pervades the big decisions we all make in our lives. How much should we pay into our pensions each month? Should we take regular exercise? Expand the business? Change our strategy? Enter a trade agreement? Take an expensive holiday?

We do not know what the future will hold. But we must make decisions anyway. So we crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have. But humans are successful because they have adapted to an environment that they understand only imperfectly. Throughout history we have developed a variety of ways of coping with the radical uncertainty that defines our lives.

This incisive and eye-opening book draws on biography, history, mathematics, economics and philosophy to highlight the most successful - and most short-sighted - methods of dealing with an unknowable future Ultimately, the authors argue, the prevalent method of our age falls short, giving us a false understanding of our power to make predictions, leading to many of the problems we experience today.

Tightly argued, provocative and written with wit and flair, Radical Uncertainty is at once an exploration of the limits of numbers and a celebration of human instinct and wisdom.

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9781408712603
Number of pages: 544
Weight: 823 g
Dimensions: 236 x 164 x 50 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

If you're interested in judgement and decision-making, this book is fascinating. If that's your job, Radical Uncertainty is essential. - Ed Smith

In this profound yet practical book, Kay and King demonstrate the obvious - that in crucial domains, we do not, will not, cannot know what is going on - and show, nevertheless, how to retain the ability to function. - Paul Romer

This fascinating and well-written book will resonate way beyond economics. It deserves to be widely read. - Mike Brearley

John Kay and Mervyn King want more people to grasp the old distinction between risk and uncertainty forgotten by a later generation of economists. - Niall Ferguson

Many books will make a reader better informed or smarter. This is one of very few that will make a reader much wiser. You will live differently and better after you grasp Kay and King's seminal lessons. - Lawrence H. Summers

You may also be interested in...

The Trading Game
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99 £8.99
The Psychology of Money
Added to basket
The Concise 48 Laws Of Power
Added to basket
Never Split the Difference
Added to basket
The Shortest History of Economics
Added to basket
Technofeudalism
Added to basket
The Diary of a CEO
Added to basket
Hardback
£20.00 £14.99
Autocracy, Inc
Added to basket
Hardback
£20.00 £15.99
Going Infinite
Added to basket
Shoe Dog
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99
Money
Added to basket
Hardback
£25.00 £20.99
Elon Musk
Added to basket
Paperback
£12.99 £10.99
How Big Things Get Done
Added to basket
Paperback
£11.99 £9.99
Chip War
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99
How to Change Your Life
Added to basket
Paperback
£10.99 £9.49
But What Can I Do?
Added to basket
The Invisible Doctrine
Added to basket
Hardback
£12.99 £10.99
Think Again
Added to basket
Paperback
£12.99

“We know less than we think so a little humility instead of hubris might be a good idea”

This should be read by all those who make key decisions and even those of us who don't, not least because we don't usually know which are the key decisions, which is one of the key ideas in the book. I can... More

Hardback edition
4 similar books recommended
Helpful? Upvote 35

Please sign in to write a review

Your review has been submitted successfully.