Luck

Product Description

For aspiring cricketer Ed Smith luck was for other people. Like his childhood hero Geoff Boycott the tough flinty Yorkshireman the young Ed knew that the successful cricketer made his own luck by an application of will power elimination of error & the relentless pursuit of excellence. But when a freak accident at the crease at Lords prematurely ended Ed Smiths international cricketing career it changed everything
- & prompted him to look anew at his own life through the prism of luck. Tracing the history of the concepts of luck & fortune destiny & fate from the ancient Greeks to the present day
- in religion in banking in politics
- Ed Smith argues that the question of luck versus skill is as pertinent today as it ever has been. He challenges us to think again about privilege & opportunity to re-examine the question of innate ability & of gifts & talents accidentally conferred at birth. Weaving in his personal stories
- notably the chance meeting of a beautiful stranger who would become his wife on a train he seemed fated to miss
- he puts to us the idea that in life luck cannot be underestimated: without any means of explaining our differing lots in life the world without luck is one in which you deserve every ill that befalls you where envy dominates & averageness is the stifling ideal. Embracing luck leads us to a fresh reappraisal of the nature of success opportunity & fairness. Bankers have promised risk-free investments the self-help industry peddles the idea that everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps & lifes winners are encouraged to claim that they did it all themselves in a meritocracy. The case for luck needs to be made now more than ever.