Fluke

This audiobook-style summary explores a simple, unsettling, and oddly comforting idea: the world is not as orderly as people often want it to be. History, biology, society, and personal lives are shaped not only by big forces and careful plans, but also by coincidences—tiny turns that ripple outward in ways no one can fully predict.

Across seven chapters, the narration invites listeners to notice where they’ve underestimated chance, why the human mind prefers neat stories, and how modern life may be making “high-impact flukes” more common. The message is not to give up control, but to trade false certainty for flexible resilience—and to remember that even small actions can matter more than we’ll ever know.

• Anyone who feels pressured to have everything figured out and wants a calmer, more realistic relationship with uncertainty.
• Leaders, planners, and problem-solvers who want to make better decisions in complex systems where outcomes aren’t fully predictable.
• Listeners drawn to psychology and big-picture thinking—how history, society, and personal lives are shaped by both patterns and randomness.

Brian Klaas is a writer and researcher whose work examines how power, society, and complex systems shape human outcomes. In this book, he explores how chance and interconnectedness influence history and everyday life, encouraging intellectual humility and more resilient ways of thinking.