Includes bibliographical references.

Wisdom of crowds -- Difference difference makes: waggle dances, the Bay of Pigs, and the value of diversity -- Monkey see, monkey do: imitation, information cascades, and independence -- Putting the pieces together: the CIA, Linux, and the art of decentralization -- Shall we dance?: coordination in a complex world -- Society does exist: taxes, tipping, television, and trust -- Traffic: what we have here is a failure to coordinate -- Science: collaboration, competition, and reputation -- Committees, juries, and teams: the Columbia disaster and how small groups can be made to work -- Company: meet the new boss, same as the old boss? -- Markets: beauty contests, bowling alleys, and stock prices -- Democracy: dreams of the common good -- Acknowledgments -- Notes. In this book, New Yorker columnist Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant--better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. This seemingly counterintuitive notion has major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in clear, entertaining prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.--From publisher description.