Complexity is inherent in practically every aspect of our lives,
including societies, ecosystems, transport, financial markets, urbanization,
the internet, the economy, and social media.
This book is a comprehensive introduction to quantitative approaches
to complex adaptive systems, starting from basic principles.
Its aim is to understand the origins and patterns of dynamical processes
that give rise to the huge range of natural and socio-economic phenomena on our planet.
In so doing, it examines the systemic properties of systems,
such as efficiency, robustness, resilience, and proneness to collapse.
As the quantitative tools and concepts needed to understand
the co-evolutionary nature of networked complex systems are challenging,
the book also equips the reader with a basic self-contained toolkit
for engaging in complex systems science.
Topics covered in the book include: co-evolutionary dynamics;
driven and path dependent processes; dynamics of networks, the theory of scaling; statistical mechanics and information theory of complex systems.
The book extends earlier classical literature in the field to summarize—in
a clear, structured, and comprehensive way—the methodological progress
made in complex systems science over the past 20 years.
