The Wisdom of Crowds

In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant-better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review :
What the crowd is saying about "The Wisdom of Crowds": ""The Wisdom of Crowds" is dazzling. It is one of those books that will turn your world upside down. It's an adventure story, a manifesto, and the most brilliant book on business, society, and everyday life that I've read in years." --Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point ""Most crowds of readers would agree that Jim Surowiecki is one of the most interesting journalists working today. Now he has written a book that will exceed even their expectations. Anyone open to rethinking their most basic assumptions--people who enjoyed "The Tipping Point," say--will love this book." --Michael Lewis, author of "Moneyball." "This book should be in every thinking businessperson's library. Without exception. At a time when corporate leaders have shown they're not always deserving of our trust, James Surowiecki has brilliantly revealed that we can trust each other. That we count. That our collective effort is far more important than the lofty predictions of those CEO-kings we have worshipped for too long." --Po Bronson, author of "What Should I Do With My Life?" "Jim Surowiecki has done the near impossible. He's taken what in other hands would be a dense and difficult subject and given us a book that is engaging, surprising, and utterly persuasive. "The Wisdom of Crowds" will change the way you think about markets, economics, and a large swatch of everyday life." --Joe Nocera, editorial director of "Fortune" magazine and author of "A Piece of the Action." "It has become increasingly recognized that the average opinions of groups is frequently more accurate than most individuals in the group. As aspecial case, economists have spoken of the role of markets in assembling dispersed information. The author has written a most interesting survey of the many studies in this area and discussed the limits as well as the achievements of self-organization." --Kenneth Arrow, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and Professor of Economics (Emeritus), Stanford University "From the Hardcover edition."