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Sign up todayThe Hour between Dog and Wolf
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Learn moreHow risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior—or stress and depression
In this eye-opening book, Coates—a former Wall Street trader and now a world-class neuroscientist—describes the role our biology plays in our risk-taking behavior. Coates brings his research to life by telling a story of fictional traders who get caught up in a bubble and then a crash. As these traders place their bets and live with the results, Coates looks inside their bodies to describe the physiology driving them into irrational exuberance and then pessimism. The result is a riveting tale and a penetrating insight into how traders'—and indeed all humans'—bodies guide their risk taking, endowing them with fast reactions and gut feelings; but how their biology can also lead them to extremes of euphoria or anxiety and stress, thereby wreaking havoc on the economy. Coates extends his conclusions to all types of high-pressure decision making—from the sports field to the battlefield.
John Coates is a senior research fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge. After completing his PhD, he worked for Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank in New York, where he observed the powerful emotions driving traders. He returned to Cambridge in 2004 to research the effects of the endocrine system on financial risk taking. His work has been cited in several publications, and he has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, and the BBC.
Richard Powers is the author of New York Times bestseller Bewilderment; The Overstory, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; and The Echo Maker, which won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; among many other novels. Powers has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction, and is a four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Reviews
“This scintillating treatise…is a provocative and entertaining take on the irrational exuberance—and anxiety—of the modern economy.”
“[A] profoundly unconventional book. It’s also so absorbing that I wound up reading it twice…From the first page to the last, Coates challenges deep-seated assumptions.”
“It makes intuitive sense that biological responses inform the mood of the markets. This book puts flesh on that idea.”
“Compelling.”
“If anyone is qualified to unify the seemingly disparate subjects of financial markets and neurology, it’s John Coates…The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a powerful distillation of his work—and an important step in the ongoing struggle to free economics from rational-actor theory.”
“A former financial trader, Coates combines his real-world experience and his clinical study of human physiology into a story of Wall Street speculators in action…A provocative challenger to rational-choice views of high finance, Coates makes an exceptionally clear, readable presentation that is bound to influence arguments about the regulation of Wall Street.”
“Coates…brings an educated, experienced eye to this examination of the biological side of the financial markets…Coates uses concrete examples to make understandable both the financial and neurological complexities that are central to his argument. Well-presented and intriguing.”
“A vivid and brilliantly written narrative: by integrating his knowledge of neuroscience with his experience as a Wall Street trader, Coates pulls back the curtain on the physiological mechanisms that prepare some individuals to thrive and others to be devastated by confronting risk.”
“John Coates brings finely honed scientific insight to his insider’s look at the world of high-wire high finance to produce a vivid depiction of the minds, brains, and bodies of economic movers and shakers living on the edge.”
“A terrific read—better than any amount of economic analysis because it explains what lies at the root of economic disaster—those biological drivers that cause sane and clever people to make catastrophic decisions. Every banker should be made to read it.”
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