Forecast

With four books on "social physics", Mark Buchanan has become an established leader in this field, and, as a successful academic with a large background of trade writing and promotional experience, the author is well-positioned for extensive media exposureThe author was contacted by George Soros after writing an op-ed in the New York Times about economic instability, and the financial-world figurehead is likely to write a foreword. It will be an essential book for all investors or those with an interest in how the markets workA fascinating and accessible study of trends and realities in the financial system, this will appeal to fans of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan and More Money Than God by Sebastian MallabyPhysicist Mark Buchanan is a former editor at Nature and New Scientist, and is the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles internationally. He currently writes monthly columns for the financial media outlet Bloomberg View, as well as for Nature Physics. He has written two prize-nominated non-fiction books, Ubiquity: The Science of History and Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, and, most recently, The Social Atom. He lives in Dorset, England. http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.co.uk/In this thoroughly researched and piercingly intelligent book, physicist Mark Buchanan shows how a simple feedback loop can lead to major consequences, the kind predictable by mathematical models but hard for most people to anticipate. From his unique perspective, Buchanan argues that our basic assumptions about economic markets - that they are for the most part stable, with occasional interruptions - are simply wrong. Markets really act more like weather: a brief heat wave can become a massive storm in a matter of a few days, or even hours. Forecast re-imagines the basics of the financial world, with consequences that affect everyone.A groundbreaking book that uses physics to show how instability is inherent in economic markets, just as thunderstorms are a part of the weatherBuchanan succeeds where others fail ... He is able to communicate this novel way of thinking without compromising scientific integrityUbiquity explains better than any previous book why many fields of the natural world and human life are unpredictableOffers fascinating ways to approach worldly problemsLikely the Blink or Freakonomics of 2007, theoretical physicist Buchanan's new book explains how we replicate behaviour of people we admire, and stick close to people with shared fundamental bonds such as ethnic heritageSome of the conclusions are truly surprising ... EnthrallingBeguiling behavioural study ... he's on to something big