The Hour between Dog and Wolf, John Coates
The Hour between Dog and Wolf, John Coates
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The Hour between Dog and Wolf
Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and Bust

Author: John Coates

Narrator: Richard Powers

Unabridged: 10 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/14/2012

Synopsis

How risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior—or stress and depressionIn this eye-opening book, Coates—a former Wall Street trader and now a world-class neuroscientist—describes the role our biology plays in our risk-taking behavior. Coates brings his research to life by telling a story of fictional traders who get caught up in a bubble and then a crash. As these traders place their bets and live with the results, Coates looks inside their bodies to describe the physiology driving them into irrational exuberance and then pessimism. The result is a riveting tale and a penetrating insight into how traders'—and indeed all humans'—bodies guide their risk taking, endowing them with fast reactions and gut feelings; but how their biology can also lead them to extremes of euphoria or anxiety and stress, thereby wreaking havoc on the economy. Coates extends his conclusions to all types of high-pressure decision making—from the sports field to the battlefield.

About John Coates

John Coates is a senior research fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge. After completing his PhD, he worked for Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank in New York, where he observed the powerful emotions driving traders. He returned to Cambridge in 2004 to research the effects of the endocrine system on financial risk taking. His work has been cited in several publications, including the New York Times, Wired, and the Economist, and he has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, and the BBC. His writing has been published in the Financial Times and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other publications.

About Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and Bewilderment was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by John on July 10, 2012

An interesting read for someone interested in research study results in psychology, neuroscience and the behavioral effects of hormones. Coates is clearly very familiar with both the world of the trading floor and the science he writes about. I was disappointed, however, in the lack of a real punch......more

Goodreads review by Pavlo on March 11, 2016

I knew about author's research and had a basic knowledge of neurophysiology and neurobiology before reading this book . I don't feel that I've learned anything new. It was fun to read stories from the trading floor, in some sense even nostalgic. However, nothing beyond that. One unexpected drawback......more

Goodreads review by Mike on January 19, 2013

Like war, activity on the trading floor "consists of long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief periods of terror", writes John Coates in The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (Fourth Estate, £20). What follows is a minute-by-minute analysis of the trader's metabolism which reveals the effects of the euph......more

Goodreads review by John on October 04, 2019

Our stress response is designed to fuel a muscular effort, yet the stress must have us face is largely psychological and social, and we endure it sitting in a chair. The used glucose ends up being deposited around the waist as fat, the type of fat deposit posing the greatest risk for heart disease.......more

Goodreads review by Rick on January 08, 2023

Oscar Wilde said, "A fool is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". The quote could be translated to this book. “A fool is someone who can tell you what neurotransmitters are firing, but not actually how to do the job.” This author overstates the correlation between thi......more

Quotes

“[A] profoundly unconventional book. It’s also so absorbing that I wound up reading it twice…From the first page to the last, Coates challenges deep-seated assumptions.”

Bloomberg Businessweek

“It makes intuitive sense that biological responses inform the mood of the markets. This book puts flesh on that idea.”

Economist

“Compelling.”

New Scientist

“If anyone is qualified to unify the seemingly disparate subjects of financial markets and neurology, it’s John Coates…The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a powerful distillation of his work—and an important step in the ongoing struggle to free economics from rational-actor theory.”

Daily Beast

“This scintillating treatise…is a provocative and entertaining take on the irrational exuberance—and anxiety—of the modern economy.”

Publishers Weekly

“A former financial trader, Coates combines his real-world experience and his clinical study of human physiology into a story of Wall Street speculators in action…A provocative challenger to rational-choice views of high finance, Coates makes an exceptionally clear, readable presentation that is bound to influence arguments about the regulation of Wall Street.”

Booklist

“Coates…brings an educated, experienced eye to this examination of the biological side of the financial markets…Coates uses concrete examples to make understandable both the financial and neurological complexities that are central to his argument. Well-presented and intriguing.”

Kirkus Reviews

“A vivid and brilliantly written narrative: by integrating his knowledge of neuroscience with his experience as a Wall Street trader, Coates pulls back the curtain on the physiological mechanisms that prepare some individuals to thrive and others to be devastated by confronting risk.”

Stephen W. Porges, director, Brain-Body Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago

“John Coates brings finely honed scientific insight to his insider’s look at the world of high-wire high finance to produce a vivid depiction of the minds, brains, and bodies of economic movers and shakers living on the edge.”

Gabor Maté, MD, author of When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

“A terrific read—better than any amount of economic analysis because it explains what lies at the root of economic disaster—those biological drivers that cause sane and clever people to make catastrophic decisions. Every banker should be made to read it.”

Rita Carter, author of Mapping the Mind

Awards

  • Financial Times Best Book of the Year
  • Wellcome Trust Book Prize
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