Book Description

Game theory has revolutionized the study of animal behavior. The fundamental principle of evolutionary game theory--that the strategy adopted by one individual depends on the strategies exhibited by others--has proven a powerful tool in uncovering the forces shaping otherwise mysterious behaviors. In this volume, the first since 1982 devoted to evolutionary game theory, leading researchers describe applications of the theory to diverse types of behavior, providing an overview of recent discoveries and a synthesis of current research. The volume begins with a clear introduction to game theory and its explanatory scope. This is followed by a series of chapters on the use of game theory to understand a range of behaviors: social foraging, cooperation, animal contests, communication, reproductive skew and nepotism within groups, sibling rivalry, alternative life-histories, habitat selection, trophic-level interactions, learning, and human social behavior. In addition, the volume includes a discussion of the relations among game theory, optimality, and quantitative genetics, and an assessment of the overall utility of game theory to the study of social behavior. Presented in a manner accessible to anyone interested in animal behavior but not necessarily trained in the mathematics of game theory, the book is intended for a wide audience of undergraduates, graduate students, and professional biologists pursuing the evolutionary analysis of animal behavior. ... Read more

Book Description

This introduction to dynamical systems theory treats both discrete dynamical systems and continuous systems. Driven by numerous examples from a broad range of disciplines and requiring only knowledge of ordinary differential equations, the text emphasizes applications and simulation utilizing MATLAB®, Simulink®, and the Symbolic Math toolbox.Beginning with a tutorial guide to MATLAB®, the text thereafter is divided into two main areas. In Part I, both real and complex discrete dynamical systems are considered, with examples presented from population dynamics, nonlinear optics, and materials science. Part II includes examples from mechanical systems, chemical kinetics, electric circuits, economics, population dynamics, epidemiology, and neural networks. Common themes such as bifurcation, bistability, chaos, fractals, instability, multistability, periodicity, and quasiperiodicity run through several chapters. Chaos control and multifractal theories are also included along with an example of chaos synchronization. Some material deals with cutting-edge published research articles and provides a useful resource for open problems in nonlinear dynamical systems. Approximately 330 illustrations, over 300 examples, and exercises with solutions play a key role in the presentation. Over 60 MATLAB® program files and Simulink® model files are listed throughout the text; these files may also be downloaded from the Internet at: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/. Additional applications and further links of interest are also available at the author's website.The hands-on approach of Dynamical Systems with Applications using MATLAB® engages a wide audience of senior undergraduate and graduate students, applied mathematicians, engineers, and working scientists in various areas of the natural sciences.Reviews of the author’s published book Dynamical Systems with Applications using Maple®: "The text treats a remarkable spectrum of topics…and has a little for everyone. It can serve as an introduction to many of the topics of dynamical systems, and will help even the most jaded reader, such as this reviewer, enjoy some of the interactive aspects of studying dynamics using Maple®." – U.K. Nonlinear News "…will provide a solid basis for both research and education in nonlinear dynamical systems." – The Maple Reporter ... Read more

Book Description

Book Series: INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE : Volume 55 Search Theory is one of the classic methodological disciplines in Operations Research and Applied Mathematics. It deals with the problem faced by a searcher who wishes to minimize the time required to find a hidden object. Traditionally, the target of the search is assigned to have no motives of its own and is either stationary (e.g., oil, network problems, etc.) or its motion is determined stochastically by known rules (e.g., financial markets, scheduling, genetics, etc.). The Theory of Search Games and Rendezvous widens the dimensions to the classical problem with the addition of an independent player of equal status to the searcher, who cares about being found or not being found. These multiple motives of searcher and hider are analytically and mathematically considered the book's two foci: Search Games (Book I) and Rendezvous Theory (Book II).Shmuel Gal's work on Search Games (Gal, 1980) stimulated considerable research in a variety of fields including Computer Science, Engineering, Biology, and Economics. Steve Alpern's original formulation of the rendezvous search problem in 1976 and his formalization of the continuous version (Alpern, 1995) have led to much research in redezvous in the past few years. New material is covered in both Search Games (Book I) and Rendezvous Theory (Book II). The book examines a whole variety of new configurations of theory and problems that arise from these two aspects of the analysis - resulting in a penetrating state-of-the-art treatment of this highly useful mathematical, analytical tool. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great book! with some drawbacks.
Great book to teach a 1-semester game theory course to undergrads, but it lacks the calculus necessary for people who want to continue in the area or read technical papers with some sort of basic understanding. The exposition is very clear though!

the best introduction to game theory
Osborne's book is the most complete introduction
to game theory available. It's formal but also
reader friendly with a lot of examples. It's
considerably better than the usual game
theory textbooks used in economics (Gibbons,
Kreps and others). Simply great! ... Read more

Book Description

"This book is a timely one in the rapidly growing area of evolutionary game theory applied to economics. . . . Students and researchers alike will be delighted by its thorough analysis of many standard examples and their generalizations. Research in the theory of evolutionary games by economists has exploded. . . while that by biologists has leveled off. The author has achieved an excellent balance between describing the biological foundations of the theory while constantly justifying and explaining the resultant concepts from a more rationalistic and/or economic perspective." -- Ross Cressman, Mathematical Reviews

This text introduces current evolutionary game theory--where ideas from evolutionary biology and rationalistic economics meet--emphasizing the links between static and dynamic approaches and noncooperative game theory. The author provides an overview of the developments that have taken place in this branch of game theory, discusses the mathematical tools needed to understand the area, describes both the motivation and intuition for the concepts involved, and explains why and how the theory is relevant to economics. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good Coverage of Basics
This book is a good and standard introduction to evolutionary game theory. Weibull covers basic definitions of evolutionary stability and variants, replicator and other selection dynamics, and multipopulation models. The exposition is clear and compact. It would certainly be useful for social scientists, as well as biologists seeking an introduction to evolutionary game theory. Standard noncooperative game theory is reviewed at the beginning, but this will probably not suffice as an actualy introduction to the field. It's best to bring some knowledge of basic noncooperative game theory to the table.

It is a fairly technical book, but that cannot be considered a drawback. That is the subject matter, and a good treatment cannot be non-technical.

Not much usefull for practical purposes
During the work on my master thesis ("Learning in strategic games") i bought several books about the topic. This one was the hardest to understand and to apply to anything practical. I guess this one is for "hard core" mathematicians. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Evolutionary game theory is one of the most active and rapidly growing areas of research in economics. Unlike traditional game theory models, which assume that all players are fully rational and have complete knowledge of details of the game, evolutionary models assume that people choose their strategies through a trial-and-error learning process in which they gradually discover that some strategies work better than others. In games that are repeated many times, low-payoff strategies tend to be weeded out, and an equilibrium may emerge.

Larry Samuelson has been one of the main contributors to the evolutionary game theory literature. In Evolutionary Games and Equilibrium Selection, he examines the interplay between evolutionary game theory and the equilibrium selection problem in noncooperative games. After an overview of the basic issues of game theory and a presentation of the basic models, the book goes on to discuss evolutionary stability, the dynamics of sample paths, the ultimatum game, drift, noise, backward and forward induction, and strict Nash equilibria. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent!
During the work on my master thesis ("Learning in strategic games") i bought several books about the topic. This is the one of them. This book has lots of theory in it and don't try reading if you are not mathematician with solid understanding of classic game theory concepts and theorems. However, this book gives also very good ides for practical usage (I was writing a C program and I used some of these ideas to make mty learning more sophisticated). ... Read more

Book Description

Classics in Game Theory assembles in one sourcebook the basic contributions to the field that followed on the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern (Princeton, 1944). The theory of games, first given a rigorous formulation by von Neumann in a in 1928, is a subfield of mathematics and economics that models situations in which individuals compete and cooperate with each other. In the "heroic era" of research that began in the late 1940s, the foundations of the current theory were laid; it is these fundamental contributions that are collected in this volume. In the last fifteen years, game theory has become the dominant model in economic theory and has made significant contributions to political science, biology, and international security studies. The central role of game theory in economic theory was recognized by the award of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1994 to the pioneering game theorists John C. Harsanyi, John Nash, and Reinhard Selten. The fundamental works for which they were honored are all included in this volume.

Harold Kuhn, himself a major contributor to game theory for his reformulation of extensive games, has chosen eighteen essays that constitute the core of game theory as it exists today. Drawn from a variety of sources, they will be an invaluable tool for researchers in game theory and for a broad group of students of economics, political science, and biology. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

more for specialists
I love this book -- but this is what I do. I doubt someone looking to learn game theory on their own is going to find this of any interest. Any serious student of game theory should find it very useful.

A classic
This book takes you through the land that Von Neumann, in my opinion, created. There is no way any game theorist or game theory novice can appreciate the lenghts to which the field has expanded, without first understanding its roots. It contains the actual report, where Nash defined what is now the basis for all game theory, the Nash equilibrium! That is true excitement ... Read more

Book Description

Reasoning about knowledge -- particularly the knowledge of agents who reason about the world and each other's knowledge -- was once the exclusive province of philosophers and puzzle solvers. More recently, this type of reasoning has been shown to play a key role in a surprising number of contexts, from understanding conversations to the analysis of distributed computer algorithms.

Reasoning About Knowledge is the first book to provide a general discussion of approaches to reasoning about knowledge and its applications to distributed systems, artificial intelligence, and game theory. It brings eight years of work by the authors into a cohesive framework for understanding and analyzing reasoning about knowledge that is intuitive, mathematically well founded, useful in practice, and widely applicable. The book is almost completely self-contained and should be accessible to readers in a variety of disciplines, including computer science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, and game theory. Each chapter includes exercises and bibliographic notes. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great book by great person
This book is by one of our professors in my university, and he is a wonderful professor. I can clearly imagine that he'd be a wonderful dad and a brother in law as well.

Great Book
This book is writen by my dad, and he is an amazing guy. He is a very, very smart person, and i know this book is a GREAT book!

Great book
I have used only part of the book. Most of the book is explained using the 'muddy children' example, which also serves to illustrate the complexities in automating a trivial puzzle for humans. The book also contains accessible coverage of Kripke structures and Aumann diagrams. This is quite a accessible introduction to a fairly complex subject.

Excellent
This book is by my brother in law, who is a great guy and a wonderful dad, but makes his children eat fruit after every meal. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Minute to Learn: A Lifetime to Master
Hex is a deterministic, zero-sum, abstract board game. If you know what this means, and appreciate such games, then you will find the game irresistible. The rules are so simple that you can "see" far down the strategy tree. Draws are impossible. Hex was invented independently by two eminent mathematicians, Piet Hein and Nobel Prize winner John Nash (the latter of _A Beautiful Mind_ fame). The feel of competition that this game provides is intense; one player compared it to a "knife fight in a phone booth." The game demands your best efforts, and rewards them.
If you are talented mathematically, there are chapters which deal with the game in a way that appeals. If not, you will still love to study how the book progresses from the simplest templates to tactics to overall strategy. Annotated games are given, as well as quizzes and problems. Game of expert play are taken from the internet. Hex programs are dicussed. There is a rich treatment of the variants and offshoots of the basic game, although perhaps basic 11 x 11 hex is probably still the best of the bunch. The author creates a rich vocabulary to describe the different aspects of the game, and while the reader may have to slow his reading occasionally and ponder, he will find everything in its proper order and will find that everything makes sense. I found a useful colection of blank boards of different sizes at the back of the book which I photocopied to make studies of the games I have now in progress on the net, and thereby explore the different possible avenues of play by using pencil-and-paper diagrams. Anyone who enjoys abstract games such as chess and go will be cheating himself by not exploring the richness of this book, and the richness and challenge of this game. There are a few typos here and there, but relatively few, and not very distracting.

The "Hex" Bible
Being hex rules so simple, there are only 2 possibilities. Either you never heard about hex or you know how to play it. In the first case there are good odds that you can like this book,especially if you like games such as chess or checkers. But in the second, this book is a must. There is everything about this wondeful game, from strategy to historic notes, from variants to computer-play and algorithms, from sample games to a great reference section.
So this is THE hex book.

Strategies for a simple game with many subtle possibilities
While I had heard of the game of Hex, until I read this book, it had been of little interest to me. My interest in games like this extends very little beyond the analysis of strategies. In most cases, I find detailed treatments of tactics to be uninteresting and rarely complete an article much less a book. However, this time I read it completely and not just because I needed to for the review. I am not sure whether it is the game itself or the writers explanation, but my interest never wavered throughout. While many of the questions regarding the best next move had clear solutions, there were times when I did not believe that the given move was the appropriate one. However, once I read the explanation, there was no doubt.
It is this feature that most likely kept my interest. Some of the strategies are obvious and easily seen. The point where my interest was really generated was when the subtlety of play began to become evident. Seemingly foolish moves are suddenly understood to be brilliant ones that force the conclusion. It is easy to prove that every game must have a winner and also that there must be an optimal strategy that will guarantee victory. The problem of course is that the next best move that guarantees victory often appears as one of little consequence.
This is the first book about games that I have read from cover to cover in many years where my interest never wavered. I tackled most of the problems and came away with a deep appreciation for the game and the difficulty of play. It is strongly recommended.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission. ... Read more

Book Description

Game theory has become increasingly popular among undergraduate as well as business school students. This text is the first to provide both a complete theoretical treatment of the subject and a variety of real-world applications, primarily in economics, but also in business, political science, and the law. Strategies and Games grew out of Prajit Dutta's experience teaching a course in game theory over the last six years at Columbia University.

The book is divided into three parts: Strategic Form Games and Their Applications, Extensive Form Games and Their Applications, and Asymmetric Information Games and Their Applications. The theoretical topics include dominance solutions, Nash equilibrium, backward induction, subgame perfect equilibrium, repeated games, dynamic games, Bayes-Nash equilibrium, mechanism design, auction theory, and signaling. An appendix presents a thorough discussion of single-agent decision theory, as well as the optimization and probability theory required for the course.

Every chapter that introduces a new theoretical concept opens with examples and ends with a case study. Case studies include Global Warming and the Internet, Poison Pills, Treasury Bill Auctions, and Final Jeopardy. Each part of the book also contains several chapter-length applications including Bankruptcy Law, the NASDAQ market, OPEC, and the Commons problem. This is also the first text to provide a detailed analysis of dynamic strategic interaction. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Highly recommended
This is definitely a very good introduction book. It is very accessible, while at the same time formalized enough to make it a good reference book.

It explains the results derived in a very intuitive manner, which I like a lot about this book. There is a straightforward, intuitive explanation provided for (almost) every result. The main points of every chapter are also outlined very nicely, the book has a great structure.

Another good thing is that the author quite often states straightforward questions right after claiming some result, like "..which leads us to ask...", or "...this begs the question of..." This is nice because it helps you keep track of what it is we are actually looking for or the general direction of the whole chapter.

The chapters are small, which I think is good because it allows the reader to get a sense of accomplishment rather often, great for motivation.

Unfortunately, there are no answers provided to the questions. If you are not bothered by that, then no problem. But I don't have that kind of dicipline, and I suspect most people don't, which is mostly why I took off one star. But on the other hand, I guess most other game theory texts don't provide answers either, so maybe I shouldn't hold it too much against it. All in all, it's a terrific book and game theory such a wonderful subject, so I can't but recommend it.

A great book for those interested in Game Theory
This is a great book for getting a good start in game theory. The proofs are laid out very clearly, which makes the whole book much easier to follow. Many of the more difficult topics are explained through examples which makes the subjects more interesting, easier to follow, and better for later application on your own. I have gone through quite a number of game theory texts in the last few years and this one is by far the best I have seen for someone just starting out. I recommend this text highly for advanced undergrads and grad students who are just getting going in these topics. The dynamic game section was especially nicely done! ... Read more

Book Description

In this important book, John H. Holland dramatically shows us that the "emergence" of order from chaos has much to teach us about life, mind, and organizations. Creative activities in both the arts and the sciences depend upon an ability to model the world. The most creative of those models exhibits emergent properties, so that "what comes out is more than what goes in." From the ingenious checkers-playing computer that started beating its creator in game after game, to the emotive creations of the poet, Emergence shows that Holland's theory successfully predicts many complex behaviors in art and science. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Above the General Interest and Disoganized
While the intended audience is the general interest reader, this book will be a bit complicated for most people who are unfamilar with Turning Machines, i.e., stack machines, etc.

Toss Up
Parts of this book were interesting, but overall it was much ado about not much, and what was done was often overdone (I agree with another reviewer on this point). I see that Amazon has coupled this book with Hidden Order. I can't see why. It would be like buying the same book twice. Anyway, so much of this has been warmed over so many times now that it's frankly a bit dry. I'd like to see a book that really breaks new ground in complexity without overusing buzz words or talking down to me, holding my hand through simple things. Here, the topic is more attractive than the content I'm afraid. Anyone really interested in complexity and emergence will need to go into technical details well beyond this book. Others, like me, will likely find the details that are here to be a bit tedious.

Science Fiction
The review says "Think of the food replicators in the imaginary future of Star Trek--with some basic chemical building blocks and simple rules, those machines can produce everything from Klingon delicacies to Earl Grey tea. If scientists can understand and apply the knowledge they gather from studying emergent systems, we may soon witness the development of artificial intelligence, nanotech, biological machines, and other creations heretofore confined to science fiction." -- What?? Like we are about to make food replicators because of the "deep understanding" that we now have of emergent systems??

I agree with the other reviewer who says the book is characteristically weak. The cover is prettier than Hidden Order. But so what.

There have to be better books on complexity than this for the average popular science reader.

A contribution for the understanding of the complexity
It is very important to the universal thinking the unsderstanding about complexity and its cognitive perception by humans. I read Dr. Holland's first book in London at 1993 and that time I follow his steps in order to reach a meaningfull knowledge to our lives and our existence in the universe. The title of the book is very difficult to develop but Dr. Holland has a special skill to clarify and transmmit the ideas breaking down our paradigm about the universe and the world and life complexity.

Holland does not have the gift of popularization
John Holland's "Emergence" just doesn't make it as a science popularization. The ideas Holland presents are fascinating, exciting, and indeed highly relevant for our globalized, interconnected world.

Unfortunately, none of this comes across. Like many scientists (I know... I *am* a scientist), Holland simply has no idea how a nonscientist would grasp the concept of emergence. He overexplains simple examples like the numbers and board games of the first two chapters, then underexplains the deeper ideas of later chapters. The final chapter is pretty good in terms of unifying the book's themes and providing a broader view of how emergence fits into science and human culture. However, the reader has not been adequately prepared for this broadening because the middle chapters were so poorly explained.

I fear that most readers will come away without sensing the truly revolutionary nature of this new branch of science. Holland lacks passion! The book is bland because Holland seems not to be able to present rigorous science in conjunction with thrill and emotion. He should take a lesson from the experts at popularization, such as Sagan and Gribbin, who succeed at presenting factually correct science in a way that engages and excites nonscientists. ... Read more

Book Description

In this unusual book, first published by The MIT Press in 1980 and now updated with a new chapter, Steven Brams applies the mathematical theory of games to the Hebrew Bible. Brams's thesis is that God and the human biblical characters acted rationally--that is, given their preferences and their knowledge of other players' preferences, they made strategy choices that led to the best attainable outcomes.

Beginning with the Creation and focusing on those stories richest in conflict and intrigue, Brams uses elementary game-theoretic tools to elucidate the rational calculations of biblical players and to show precisely the manner in which they sought to achieve their goals. He relies almost exclusively on noncooperative theory, making use of both game tree and matrix forms of games. Brams uses his strategic analyses to build a detailed assessment of God's character and motivations, including the reasons for His frequently wrathful behavior. Brams's insights have application to biblical studies, the philosophy of religion, political theory, and game theory and methodology.

In the new chapter, Brams surveys the literature of the past twenty years on political-strategic interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. He also extends the game-theoretic analysis, using the theory of moves, to study a counterfactual situation--what if Abraham had refused God's command to sacrifice Isaac?--and to examine the rationality of believing in a superior being. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Five Stars if Accompanied with Brams' Theory of Moves
Brams' Biblical Games is one of the most fascinating reads that I have encountered in some time. Presented are accounts of significant events recorded in the Old Testament, all of which are logically and mathematically examined by Brams, who uses aspects of game theory to determine the rationality of each person or assembly involved.

Throughout the chapters, Brams looks at every character as a player in a game, which, by itself, is touted as a challenge whose outcome is dependent upon the type of decisions executed. He subsequently utilizes payoff matrices, which are 2x2 geometric patterns that represent the outcomes of at least four different courses of action, where the results are weighed in as follows: 4=Best, 3= Next Best, 2= Next Worst, and 1=Worst. For each game, Brams places these numbers in ordered pairs; for example, (1,1) would be the result of a worst case scenario for both parties, a (4,2) might be interpreted as a situation where Player/Group #1 has the best possible outcome at the expense of Player/Group #2, who must settle for what is interpreted as next to worst.

In Biblical Games, Brams makes transitions from one decision-making conflict to another. Some of the so-called games exclusively involve bitter enemies, others concern those who typically have one another's best interests at heart, and some just implicate those who are essentially indifferent about the next person's fate or welfare. As he proceeds from section to section, Brams surprises the reader with scenarios that can run counter to one's expectations by showing that regardless of the nature of the game or conflict, there can potentially exist a win-win outcome between enemies and an unmitigated disaster that can be brought forth between friends.

Interesting are the interpretations of the numbers assigned in each matrix. Brams often interprets a player's score of 1 (worst case) as being the result of that particular player's ineptness to make adequate decisions and that this insufficiency could be due to either recklessness or lack of fortitude, or both. A 2, on the other hand, though a next to worst, has the capacity to be esteemed as the outcome of a most logical decision made by a player who lacks the resources to put him/herself into a better situation but enough to avoid disaster. Not only does Brams weigh the outcome of what actually happened, but he also presents the logic, or lack thereof, of alternate decisions and how they all would likely have turned out.

Biblical Games is very thought provoking, even sobering. Ideally, it should help one to weigh more carefully and more wisely the consequences of the decisions that he or she makes.

On its own, Biblical Games gets four stars, but tied in with Brams' Theory of Moves, it easily gets five. From the latter book, you will have tied in with appreciating the logic of what actually happened and what might have otherwise happened à la Biblical Games a more refined, more exact analysis of potential moves and countermoves that can be applied to personal challenges in the distant future.

Game Theory Used Correctly
To show that game theory is not appropriate in this context involves much more than simply giving a much different example in which a much different theory is inappropriate and expecting us to follow you over the tightrope to the conclusion that this particular case is much the same. Simply gesturing toward a conclusion in this halphazard way shouldn't suffice in a PhD thesis and I'll be damned (forgive me) if I'm going to let it slide here.

Game theory is appropriate for the analysis of strategic decisions made in social situations - it should not matter if these social situations appear in the Bible or in the world oil market. If the "game" analyzed exhibits a solution consistent with certain assumptions (rationality, self-interestedness, and the like) about the players, then we say the player behaves as if they met these assumptions themselves. This is of course the same as the "as if" defense for economics generally, and there is even a (famous) similar defense for quantum mechanics: the only important thing is that particles behave as if they satisfied assumptions made about them. Clearly this is something that falls more in the realm of scientific method generally than in that of the methods of any particular science.

Brams is highly justified from a general modelling standpoint as well (am I the only one who thinks it odd that one should speak of *proving* results like this?). The earth may not be flat, but in so many instances it is modelled as such (or as locally such). Adding the sort of brownian variations from this structure that are clearly present at the very_local_level (or even in the large if you don't live in minnesota!) would for such purposes amount to using a model of unnecessarily high resolution, and while we all know that this implies unnecessary costs in modelling and analysis it is also true that it can disguise the phenomena of interest (remember what you learned about sampling rates in college physics lab!). Brams commits no such sins (forgive me), and while static models are more coarse than many more recent methods, they are particularly suited to the sort of highly-circumscribed interaction one finds in the Old Testament.
His use of dynamic techniques (his own theory of moves) in the analysis of counterfactuals is also instructive - dynamics is all_about_counterfactuals! Of course we see by the limitations of the necessarily_static_text that there are limitations too of such finer methods - another feather in the cap of Brams' (mostly) static analysis.

Some may then complain that the results are trivial - that *of course* the text will exhibit such large agreement with the classical (rational) assumptions used in the models. Not so. Any economics PhD worthy of the badge should be able to name countless examples of experiments in which human participants repeatedly fail to meet these criteria (Daniel Kahneman just won a Nobel for this). It is therefore *really saying something* that the various participants in Biblical "games" can be said to behave in this way.

Of course it's also very noteworthy that the Old Testament should be amenable to such an analysis - that the interactions *are* so circumscribed - that the goal forming/seeking behavior of its prominent figures *is* brought out in such high relief - and that such a clear consideration of the end results *is* so emphatically presented in nearly every instance. The true believer may well see the elucidation of these phenomena as the goal God sought in the writing of the Old Testament, and Brams has simply provided another testament (forgive me) to His success.

Joshua James Wiley

pay no attention to oil and water
He didn't read the book and misinterpreted the whole concept of it. Just because your jewish does't make you an expert on the old testament.

Actually very interesting
Just for grins, I decided to actually review this book AFTER I read it. The previous reviewer should consider doing same.

The book was interesting and thought provoking. I would recommend it to anyone with a secular interest in game theory applied to a non-obvious choice of subject. The author isn't presuming to think like God. He is applying game theory to a group of situations many are already familiar with.

Oil and Water
Let me be perfectly truthful and upfront: I have not read this book. And I'm only vaguely familiar with other works by the author.

However, the author has written about the Hebrew Bible and game theory. The fact that I'm Jewish gives me some knowledge of the first subject, and that I am also a PhD student in Economics covers me on the second topic.

I have no doubt that the author applied rigorous, game-theoretic analysis to his subject material. But, as subject matieral, I am seriously disturbed that he chose the Old Testament. Some things lend themselves to particular types of analysis. For instance, a physicist uses quantum mechanics to model situations at the sub-atomic level, as opposed to using general relativity, since the former is more appropriate than the latter.

But I'm sorry: game theory and the bible go together like oil and water. I can't tell if this reflects worse on economics or religion.

Maybe next the author will prove that Juliet was acting strategically in her dealings with Romeo, or perhaps that Tom and Jerry were simply trapped in a repeated Prisoner's dilemna?

The author claims to make inferences concerning God's motivations and decisions over the course of events in the bible. The author claims to have an explanation for God's apparent frequently wrathful behavior. Maybe he even *proved* that his results.

In my opinion, anyone who believes the statements in this book must still be convinced that we didn't go to war with Irag over oil and that the Earth is flat. ... Read more

Book Description

A one-of-a-kind volume, Learning Statistics Through Playing Cards uniquely utilizes a simple deck of playing cards to explain the important concepts in statistics. Covering many of the topics included in introductory college statistics courses, author Thomas R. Knapp escorts the student through populations and variables, parameters, percentages, probability and sampling, sampling distribution, estimation, hypothesis testing, and two-by-two tables. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises designed to help the student actually manipulate the concept under discussion (the answers are provided at the back of the text). Also included is an annotated bibliography that directs the student toward further readings. This simple approach to teaching the elementary principles of statistics and probabilities makes this an exceptional supplementary text for undergraduates and first-year graduates in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. ... Read more

Book Description

Popular puzzles such as the Rubik's cube and so-called oval track puzzles give a concrete representation to the theory of permutation groups. They are relatively simple to describe in group theoretic terms, yet present a challenge to anyone trying to solve them. John Kiltinen shows how the theory of permutation groups can be used to solve a range of puzzles. There is also an accompanying CD that can be used to reduce the need for carrying out long calculations and memorising difficult sequences of moves. This book will prove useful as supplemental material for students taking abstract algebra courses. It provides a real application of the theory and methods of permutation groups, one of the standard topics. It will also be of interest to anyone with an interest in puzzles and a basic grounding in mathematics. The author has provided plenty of exercises and examples to aid study. ... Read more

Book Description

"This is the best kind of advertisement for game theory. Lively, provocative and challenging, it offers a fresh approach to a fascinating array of problems in business strategy." -- John Sutton, London School of Economics

Game theory has come to dominate industrial organization economics, but business strategists continue to debate its usefulness. So far, empirical work on the application of game theory to business strategy has been too limited to force a consensus. As a (partial) remedy, Games Businesses Play uses detailed case studies of competitive interaction to explore the uses and limits of game theory as a tool for business strategists.

Because they are analytical rather than descriptive, the case studies are not typical teaching cases. The cases are paired with customized game-theoretic models that cover a wide range of commitment decisions, from short-run commitments such as price to longer-run commitments such as capacity expansion and reduction, product and process innovation, and battles for market share. A variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques are used to test the models' predictions on case data. In addition the book sheds light on a number of other issues important to strategic management, including the resource-based view of the firm and the emergent theory of dynamic capabilities. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Not user friendly
Writing in a intuitive and straightforward way is not one of mr Ghemawats talents, at least judging from this book. His intention when writing this book seems to have been to encourage fellow academics to use the case study method to explore the usefulness of game theory and bring it closer to practitioners.

My backgound is that I have roughly 50 academic credits in economics (mostly financial) and I have read some introductory level game theory texts, and I was at a loss when looking at the game theoretic models that Ghemawat uses. I understood most of the analytics though and there is some pretty interesting material covered in this book. But I don't think the general reader of strategy literature will get that much out of it.

If you have a strong background in micro economic theory/game theory and like seeing it applied on business, you'll probably get a huge kick out of reading this book. Ghemawhat is very careful to report how the models are set up and adapted to the situation. Great stuff if you happen to like that sort of thing.

Before reading it, I had a huge over-belief in what game theory could accomplish, but after reading this book I have a much more realistic view of its limitations (in applied business strategy at least).

Games Busineses Play : Cases and Models
Pankaj Ghemawat applies the Harvard Business School concept of case studies to game theory. Ghemawat's intent is to demonstrate that game theory is applicable to business strategy. Overall Gemawat makes a strong case for the practical aplication of game theory to business strategies. The book is useful for teaching graduates and undegraduate students a practical use of game theory. The writing style is somewhat clunky but rereading each case 3 or 4 times is worth the effort. The calculus and statistics is somewhat complex for a non-specialist , however the basic ideas are presented clearly. Overall this is a challenging book that presents game theory in a more sophisticated manner than found in the customary introductory books that rely on the cook book recipe presentation.

Applied game theory for managers and economists
The author applies his breadth of practical and academic experience (ex-McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School Professor) to create a range of practical case studies in applied game theory. There's a good balance here - the economists will like the theoretical rigor but it's still accessible to the general reader. Useful either as an introduction to game theory for managers, or a source of case examples for the more advanced student. ... Read more

Book Description

Written in a crisp and approachable style, Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory uses simple modelling techniques and straightforward explanations to provide students with an understanding of game theory and information economics. The third edition brings the text totally up-to-date. New topics include price discrimination, mechanism design, and value uncertainty in auctions. Other chapters have been extensively reorganized or rewritten.Two of the most novel features of the new edition are not contained within its covers.The other is a new book, Readings in Games and Information (also from Blackwell Publishers), which contains hard-to-locate scholarly articles, news clippings, and cartoons arranged to correspond with the chapters of the text.The book will be an indispensable tool for undergraduates studying advanced microeconomics and of considerable interest to graduates, lecturers and researchers of game theory and information economics. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Wanna Make a Game?
Are you familiar with the PAPI model? (Players, Actions, Payoffs and Information, by the way.) Do you understand what equilibrium means to a game design?

This book is a good introduction to those who are looking for a background in game theory, as well as those interested in problem-solving domains of applied logic.

A good introduction for game theory students
This is a good text for game theory students. Concise and well structured, it gives sufficient details to provide a good understanding of the subject. The math is easy to follow although the choice of words may sometimes be inappropriate resulting in a logical jump, but that is well compensated by the content. There are some typo mistakes which should be corrected by the next edition. The author tries to moderate the math with logical explanantions and does it with reasonable success although some sections can still be improved. The section on bargaining, for example, is poorly explained. Overall, a good text for teaching. ... Read more

Book Description

A problem-oriented text for evaluating statistical procedures through decision and game theory. First-year graduates in statistics, computer experts and others will find this highly respected work best introduction to growing field.
... Read more