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In this remarkable book, Duncan Watts, one
of the principal architects of the new science of networks,
lays out nothing less than a new way to understand our connected
planet. Between the Internet and e-mail, cell phones and
satellites, friends and family, highways and airports, we
are continuously surrounded by and subjected to a world
of networks -- often bewilderingly so. Whether they bind
computers, economies, or terrorist organizations, networks
are everywhere in the real world, yet until recently the
fundamental nature of the networks themselves has remained
shrouded in mystery.
However, in the past few years, Watts and
others have spearheaded a new generation of research that
is rapidly revealing the rules by which networks grow, the
patterns they form, and the way in which they drive collective
behaviour. From epidemics of disease to outbreaks of market
madness, from people searching for information to firms
surviving crisis and change, from the structure of personal
relationships to the technological and social choices of
entire societies, Watts weaves together a network of discoveries
across the academic spectrum, from physics to sociology,
to tell the story of an explosive new science, the people
who are building it, and his own peculiar path through it
all.
Duncan J. Watts is associate professor
of sociology at Columbia University and an external faculty
member of the Santa Fe Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical
and applied mechanics and has published in leading physics
and sociology journals. He lives in New York City.
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