The Calm Before the Storm cover art

The Calm Before the Storm

Why Volatility Signals Stability and Vice Versa

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

€0.00/month for the first 3 months
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Calm Before the Storm

By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Gregory F. Treverton
Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £1.79

Buy Now for £1.79

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Instead of trying to predict "Black Swan" events such as coups or crises, forecasters should look at how political systems handle disorder. The best indicator of a country's future trajectory is not a lengthy past stability, but recent moderate volatility.

©2015 Foreign Affairs (P)2015 Audible, Inc. Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
All stars
Most relevant  
Taleb's signature brand of thought-provoking contrarianism, this time focused on dissecting conventional notions of what constitutes stability and instability.

Worth a listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting and well narrated. Highly recommended listen for anyone curious, wanting an overview of the proposed mechanisms of political and economic fragility with examples discussed

Interesting & thought provoking

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was a blessing to listen to. It really describes how things pan out. Which can help guide for more successful outcome

Wow, Great Help

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found it interesting and educational as it helped me see things a different way in terms of relative stability of countries, and their ability to deal with major incidents. Thought provoking.

Interesting little essay

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's a good overview of economic fragility of countries but it is brief and does not go in depth for risk

Good short story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Clear & concise. I will definitely be looking further into Nassim's works. This offers a good starting point. These are strange & confusing times to be alive & while I am a pacifist at heart, it can make it difficult to understand the nature of growth in society from perspectives outside of this point of view. Nassim's perspectives from historical tendencies & philosophical nature offer a much welcomed way of grasping concepts that all too often feel too large (for me) to understand.

It's a port in a storm & I shall definitely be exploring the territory of his works for furthering my investigations. I believe it's better to be informed that a person can make an executive decision, regardless of where the decision takes you. This is a synopsis & therefore won't give you answers to life, the universe & everything, but offers some useful tidbits that encourages further research. At the very least, it's helping me feel less like I'm being swept along with the tide.

Another piece of the puzzle

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
about the markers of an economically “fragile” nation. i found it quite interesting, even though i am not completely on board with Taleb's theories, for example, i don’t necessarily think “post-traumatic growth” is the best indicator of “antifragility”, when it can be directly proportional with the competence of whoever was able to get their point across in the decision making, in that period full of crucial moments. now, i am not advocating for soviet-style centralisation (an example in the article), but in our democracies getting the overall best points across is not a default given, it comes and goes, and competence is not obvious. after this, i'm definitely interested to read more from Taleb to get more understanding of his theories. good short article.

interesting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not very interesting and not very trustworthy.
Glad it was only half an hour long

US government funded

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.