Paul Erickson

Today, game theory is central to our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and much more. Both the social and biological sciences have seemingly fused around the game. Yet the ascendancy of game theory and theories of rational choice more generally remains a rich source of misunderstanding. To gain a better grasp of the widespread dispersion of game theory and the mathematics of rational choice, Paul Erickson uncovers its history during the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern s seminal "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" in 1944 and the theory s revival in economics in the 1980s. "The World the Game Theorists Made "reveals how the mathematics of rational choice was a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging debate on some of the great issues of the time. Because it so actively persists in the sciences and public life, assessing the significance of game theory for the postwar sciences is especially critical now."

The World the Game Theorists Made

In recent decades game theory—the mathematics of rational decision-making by interacting individuals—has assumed a central place in our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and even the ethics of altruism and fairness in human beings. With game theory’s ubiquity, however, has come a great deal of misunderstanding. Critics of the contemporary social sciences view it as part of an unwelcome trend toward the marginalization of historicist and interpretive styles of inquiry, and many accuse its proponents of presenting a thin and empirically dubious view of human choice. The World the Game Theorists Made seeks to explain the ascendency of game theory, focusing on the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern’s seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 and the theory’s revival in economics in the 1980s. Drawing on a diverse collection of institutional archives, personal correspondence and papers, and interviews, Paul Erickson shows how game theory offered social scientists, biologists, military strategists, and others a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging thought and debate on some of the most critical issues of the day.

Who were the Pilgrims? This handsome photo essay examines the daily life of one family in a Pilgrim settlement in 1636 in the context of the workings of the entire colony. Readers will meet the members of Prentiss family, who live and work in the Plymouth Colony. Each one -- including the children -- has an important role to play. The routines of the household, food, dress, labor, leisure time, religion and government, health and medicine, and special occasions such as the First Thanksgiving are among the many topics examined. Also highlighted are the circumstances that led to the Pilgrims' voyage to the New World, what they found, their relations with the Indians who were already living there, and how they set about building and maintaining their settlement. This large-format book features clear text and informative sidebars packed with authentic details. Full-color photographs that show actual sites and artifacts and provide an accurate pictorial account of the Pilgrims' life more than 300 years ago. Timeline, places to visit, glossary, index.

Daily Life in the Pilgrim Colony, 1636

A Parody (of Tolkien's The Hobbit) : Or There Goes My Back Again

The Wobbit

Lorraine Daston

Michael D. Gordin

Rebecca Lemov

Judy L. Klein

Thomas Sturm

In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciences—psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others—and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the people—Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many others—and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a “Cold War rationality.” Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationality—optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanical—in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy. The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship.

The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind

A look at life and people from the past through original photographs. This title deals with the life of the early pioneers on the Oregon Trail. (Hardback: 0600579875, 1994.) Aimed at age 7+.

Daily Life on the Wagon Trail

Outlines the origins and purpose of the New Plymouth Colony, and details the home life, labor, material conditions, and other aspects of life for a typical family sixteen years after the colony was established.

Daily Life in the Pilgrim Colony 1636

Tilbury House Publishers

Scorpions and brown recluse spiders are fine as far as they go, but if you want daily contact with venomous creatures, the ocean is the place to be. Blue-ringed octopi, stony corals, sea jellies, stonefish, lionfish, poison-fanged blennies, stingrays, cone snails, blind remipedes, fire urchins--you can choose your poison in the ocean. Venoms are often but not always defensive weapons. The banded sea krait, an aquatic snake, wriggles into undersea caves to prey on vicious moray eels, killing them with one of the world's most deadly neurotoxins, which it injects through fangs that resemble hypodermic needles.

Paul Erickson

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