Books like Complexity
Loved Complexity by Melanie Mitchell? Here are 8 books with the same pull, and why each one fits.
About Complexity: A Guided Tour →8 books
- 1Hidden Order
Hidden Order
John H. HollandA short account by one of the field's founders of how adaptive systems produce complex behavior from simple rules.
- 2Emergence
Emergence
Steven JohnsonA popular survey of emergent behavior across ant colonies, cities, neural systems and software.
- 3The Origins of Order
The Origins of Order
Stuart A. KauffmanA technical but readable argument that self-organization shapes biological order alongside natural selection.
- 4Chaos
Chaos
James GleickA narrative history of chaos theory and the researchers who studied nonlinear systems in the twentieth century.
- 5Sync
Sync
Steven H. StrogatzAn accessible account of how independent oscillators and people spontaneously synchronize, from fireflies to power grids.
- 6Linked
Linked
Albert-Laszlo BarabasiA readable introduction to network science and the patterns that connect the web, cells and social groups.
- 7Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas R. HofstadterA long, playful exploration of self-reference, pattern and how meaning might emerge from mechanical systems.
- 8Ubiquity
Ubiquity
Mark BuchananA popular account of how power laws and critical states link earthquakes, markets and other complex systems.
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