Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan" explores the impact of highly improbable and unpredictable events, which he terms "Black Swans," on our world.

The book challenges conventional ways of thinking about risk and probability, arguing that our focus on normal distributions and predictable outcomes leaves us vulnerable to these significant, unexpected shocks.

Taleb critiques our tendency to retrospectively create narratives to explain these events, leading to a false sense of understanding and predictability.

He introduces concepts like "Extremistan" and "Mediocristan" to differentiate between environments with varying degrees of impact from single events.

Ultimately, the work provides insights into how to build robustness and resilience in a world dominated by randomness and surprise.