'A brilliant new book'
Daily Telegraph

'Well written . . . and often entertaining'
The Times

'A sparkling analysis'
Prospect

'Entertaining and enlightening . . . This is a necessary critique and they make it with verve, knowledge and a wealth of stories'
Financial Times

'An elegant, wise and timely book' Irish Times

'Jam-packed with erudition' New Statesman


This major, critically acclaimed work asks a vitally important question for today: when uncertainty is all around us, and the facts are not clear, how can we make good decisions?

We do not know what the future will hold, particularly in the midst of a crisis, but we must make decisions anyway. We regularly crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have, forgetting that humans are successful because we have adapted to an environment that we 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.

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.

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.