Abstract :
This book, according to its author, aims "to explain complexity by connecting the scattered dots of concepts." The author achieves this intention perfectly. Without using too much mathematics, the author keeps good balance between serious scientific material and historic as well as anecdotal material. Some of the topics covered in the book\´s ten chapters include: the meaning of different notions of complexity; characteristic properties of complex systems; a review of the history of complex systems; the complexity of temporal patterns; nonlinear models; statistical laws; complexity of the brain; and equation- and agent-based methods of complex system analysis. The book contains a thorough, very up-to-date bibliography, listing 581 references and a long list of basic notions. The book may serve as a good self-contained textbook for courses on dynamical system theory but it is also quite readable for a more general audience. For researchers on theory of complex systems, nonlinear dynamics, and related disciplines, it may serve as an efficient general guidebook of possible applications.
