Ted G. Lewis is an author, speaker, and consultant with expertise in applied complexity theory, homeland security, infrastructure systems, and early-stage startup strategies. He has served in both government, industry and academe over a long career, including, Executive Director and Professor of Computer Science, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. 93943, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA., Senior Vice President of Eastman Kodak, President and CEO of DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology, North America, Inc. and Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. In addition, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of a number of periodicals: IEEE Computer Magazine, IEEE Software Magazine, as a member of the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors and is currently Advisory Board Member of ACM Ubiquity and Cosmos + Taxis Journal (The Sociology of Hayek). He has published more than 30 books, most recently including Book of Extremes: The Complexity of Everyday Things, Bak's Sand Pile: Strategies for a Catastrophic World, Network Science: Theory and Practice and Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security: Defending a Networked Nation. Lewis has authored or co-authored numerous scholarly articles in cross-disciplinary journals such as Cognitive Systems Research, Homeland Security Affairs Journal, Journal of Risk Finance, Journal of Information Warfare and IEEE Parallel & Distributed Technology. Lewis resides with his wife and dog, in Monterey, California.

Why was the first decade of the 21st century as eventful and significant as the last 50 years of the previous century?

Proposes theories to explain extremes in a scientific as well as entertaining way

Describes why punctuated reality is bursty why systems that have worked for decades suddenly fail and why the well-being of entire nations is no longer in the hands of their leaders

Explains social movements such as the Arab Spring, as well as online social media movements like Occupy Wall Street

Shows how rigorous methods like network science and complex systems theory can be applied to explain seemingly unexplainable events

Includes supplementary material: [...]