Book Brief: Linked - The New Science of Networks

By Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Perseus Publishing, May 2002
256 pages, $26

What do a cocktail party, a Little League baseball team, a terrorist cell and an international conglomerate have in common? They are all networks, argues Barabasi, a professor of physics at Notre Dame. Barabasi contends they all act and interact in consistent ways. Understanding how networks work, he insists, helps explain everything from the best way to organize an IT department to rooting out cures for disease. Barabasi does not try to predict exactly how all this will play out. His goal is "to get you to think networks," and in that, he succeeds.