In the perspective-altering tradition of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and Nassim
Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan comes a provocative challenge to how we think our world
works—and why small chance events can divert our lives and change everything by 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? And
would you remain blind to the radically different possible world you unknowingly left behind?
In Fluke myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas dives deeply into the phenomenon of
random chance and the chaos it can sow taking aim at most people’s neat and tidy storybook
version of reality. The book’s argument is that we willfully ignore a bewildering truth: but
for a few small changes our lives—and our societies—could 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 couple’s 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 happen—all while
providing mind-bending lessons on how we can live smarter be happier and lead more fulfilling
lives.
