The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

“Brilliant.” —David Brooks, The New York Times

“A profoundly unconventional book . . . So absorbing that I wound up reading it twice.” —Bloomberg

Finalist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year

What happens to your body when you take risks? What happens to it when you make or lose a lot of money? 

In this startling book, physiologist and former Wall Street trader John Coates vividly illustrates what happens to your body when you engage in risk taking. You transform into a different person, a change Coates refers to as "the hour between dog and wolf." He tells a gripping story of a group of traders caught in a bull market and then a crash. As the excitement builds he takes us inside the traders' bodies to see the biology of risk taking at work, a biology shared by athletes, politicians, soldiers - anyone who ventures beyond their safety zone.

Coates also discusses how men and women excel at different types of risk; how the stress of failure damages our health; and how we can train our bodies so that they help rather than hinder our risk taking. Revealing the biology behind bubbles and crashes, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf sheds new and surprising light on issues that affect us all.

John Coates, Research Fellow in neuroscience and finance at the University of Cambridge, previously traded derivatives for Goldman Sachs, and ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank. He now researches the biology of risk taking and stress. His book, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, was shortlisted for the FT-Goldman Business Book of the Year, and the UK Wellcome Trust Science Prize. It was also chosen as book of the month by the British Army. His research on risk taking has attracted interest from business, medicine, and the military, as well as elite sports teams.