A Course in Game Theory presents the main ideas of game theory at a level suitable for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, emphasizing the theory's foundations and interpretations of its basic concepts. The authors provide precise definitions and full proofs of results, sacrificing generalities and limiting the scope of the material in order to do so. The text is organized in four parts: strategic games, extensive games with perfect information, extensive games with imperfect information, and coalitional games. It includes over 100 exercises.

Fascinating, Accessible Introduction To Enormously Important Intellectual System With Numerous Applications To Social, Economic, Political Problems. Newly Revised Edition Offers Overview Of Game Theory, Then Lucid Coverage Of The Two-person Zero-sum Game With Equilibrium Points; The General, Two-person Zero-sum Game; Utility Theory; Other Topics. Problems At Start Of Each Chapter--publisher's Description. 1. An Overview -- 2. The Two-person, Zero-sum Game With Equilibrium Points -- 3. The General, Two-person, Zero-sum Game -- 4. Utility Theory -- 5. The Two-person, Non-zero-sum Game -- 6. The N-person Game. By Morton D. Davis ; With A Foreword By Oskar Morgenstern. An Unabridged And Unaltered Republication Of The 1983 Revised Edition Of The Work Published By Basic Books, Inc., New York--t.p. Verso. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 229-241) And Index.

This Book Is A Selection Of The Best Articles From Game Theory Tuesdays, A Column From The Blog Mind Your Decisions. Articles From Game Theory Tuesdays Have Been Referenced In The Freakonomics Blog, Yahoo Finance, And Cnn.com.game Theory Is The Study Of Interactive Decision Making--that Is, In Situations Where Each Person's Action Affects The Outcome For The Whole Group. Game Theory Is A Beautiful Subject And This Book Will Teach You How To Understand The Theory And Practically Implement Solutions Through A Series Of Stories And The Aid Of Over 30 Illustrations.this Book Has Two Primary Objectives.(1) To Help You Recognize Strategic Games, Like The Prisoner's Dilemma, Bertrand Duopoly, Hotelling's Game, The Game Of Chicken, And Mutually Assured Destruction.(2) To Show You How To Make Better Decisions And Change The Game, A Powerful Concept That Can Transform No-win Situations Into Mutually Beneficial Outcomes. You'll Learn How To Negotiate Better By Making Your Threats Credible, Sometimes Limiting Options Or Burning Bridges, And Thinking About New Ways To Create Better Outcomes.as These Goals Indicate, Game Theory Is About More Than Board Games And Gambling. It All Seems So Simple, And Yet That Definition Belies The Complexity Of Game Theory. While It May Only Take Seconds To Get A Sense Of Game Theory, It Takes A Lifetime To Appreciate And Master It. This Book Will Get You Started.

The Much-discussed Book That Explores How Cooperation Can Emerge In A World Of Self-seeking Egoists--whether Superpowers, Businesses, Or Individuals--when There Is No Central Authority To Police Their Actions. The Evolution Of Cooperation Addresses A Simple Yet Age-old Question: If Living Things Evolve Through Competition, How Can Cooperation Ever Emerge? Despite The Abundant Evidence Of Cooperation All Around Us, There Existed No Purely Naturalistic Answer To This Question Until 1979, When Robert Axelrod Famously Ran A Computer Tournament Featuring A Standard Game-theory Exercise Called The Prisoner's Dilemma. To Everyone's Surprise, The Program That Won The Tournament, Named Tit For Tat, Was Not Only The Simplest But The Most Cooperative Entrant. This Unexpected Victory Proved That Cooperation--one Might Even Say Altruism--is Mathematically Possible And Therefore Needs No Hidden Hand Or Divine Agent To Create And Sustain It. A Great Roadblock To The Understanding Of All Sorts Of Behavior Was At Last Removed. The Updated Edition Includes An Extensive New Chapter On Cooperation In Cancer Cells And Among Terrorist Organizations.--publisher. The Problem Of Cooperation -- The Success Of Tit For Tat In Computer Tournaments -- The Chronology Of Cooperation -- The Live-and-let-live System In Trench Warfare In World War I -- The Evolution Of Cooperation In Biological Systems / With William D. Hamilton -- How To Choose Effectively -- How To Promote Cooperation -- The Social Structure Of Cooperation -- The Robustness Of Reciprocity. Robert Axelrod. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 223-229) And Index.

Games are everywhere: Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. The supermarket's price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. This Very Short Introduction offers a succinct tour of the fascinating world of game theory, a ground-breaking field that analyzes how to play games in a rational way. Ken Binmore, a renowned game theorist, explains the theory in a way that is both entertaining and non-mathematical yet also deeply insightful, revealing how game theory can shed light on everything from social gatherings, to ethical decision-making, to successful card-playing strategies, to calculating the sex ratio among bees. With mini-biographies of many fascinating, and occasionally eccentric, founders of the subject—including John Nash, subject of the movie A Beautiful Mind—this book offers a concise overview of a cutting-edge field that has seen spectacular successes in evolutionary biology and economics, and is beginning to revolutionize other disciplines from psychology to political science.

“There are at least two kinds of games,” states James P. Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end.What are infinite games? How do they affect the ways we play our finite games? What are we doing when we play—finitely or infinitely? And how can infinite games affect the ways in which we live our lives?Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world—from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion—leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything, from how an actress portrays a role to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory, but infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander.Carse has written a book rich in insight and aphorism. Already an international literary event, Finite and Infinite Games is certain to be argued about and celebrated for years to come. Reading it is the first step in learning to play the infinite game.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD“Significant...The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York TimesRay Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success.In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve.Here, from a man who has been called both “the Steve Jobs of investing” and “the philosopher king of the financial universe” (CIO magazine), is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.

Rational, Irrational -- Game Theory: A Beautiful Mind -- The Jungle Tale And The Market Tale -- Economics, Pragmatics And Seven Traps -- (sort Of) Economics Policy Ariel Rubinstein. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [249]-253).

The latest groundbreaking tome from Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek.From the author:“For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. The guests range from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists. For most of my guests, it’s the first time they’ve agreed to a two-to-three-hour interview. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads.“This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and ‘inside baseball’ you won’t find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests, and life lessons from new ‘guests’ you haven’t met.“What makes the show different is a relentless focus on actionable details. This is reflected in the questions. For example: What do these people do in the first sixty minutes of each morning? What do their workout routines look like, and why? What books have they gifted most to other people? What are the biggest wastes of time for novices in their field? What supplements do they take on a daily basis?“I don’t view myself as an interviewer. I view myself as an experimenter. If I can’t test something and replicate results in the messy reality of everyday life, I’m not interested.“Everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life in some fashion. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration.“I created this book, my ultimate notebook of high-leverage tools, for myself. It’s changed my life, and I hope the same for you.”

This Comprehensive Textbook Introduces Readers To The Principal Ideas And Applications Of Game Theory, In A Style That Combines Rigor With Accessibility. Steven Tadelis Begins With A Concise Description Of Rational Decision Making, And Goes On To Discuss Strategic And Extensive Form Games With Complete Information, Bayesian Games, And Extensive Form Games With Imperfect Information. He Covers A Host Of Topics, Including Multistage And Repeated Games, Bargaining Theory, Auctions, Rent-seeking Games, Mechanism Design, Signaling Games, Reputation Building, And Information Transmission Games. Unlike Other Books On Game Theory, This One Begins With The Idea Of Rationality And Explores Its Implications For Multiperson Decision Problems Through Concepts Like Dominated Strategies And Rationalizability. Only Then Does It Present The Subject Of Nash Equilibrium And Its Derivatives. Game Theory Is The Ideal Textbook For Advanced Undergraduate And Beginning Graduate Students. Throughout, Concepts And Methods Are Explained Using Real-world Examples Backed By Precise Analytic Material. The Book Features Many Important Applications To Economics And Political Science, As Well As Numerous Exercises That Focus On How To Formalize Informal Situations And Then Analyze Them. -- From Back Cover. Part I: Rational Decision Making. The Single-person Decision Problem -- Introducing Uncertainty And Time -- Part Ii: Static Games Of Complete Information. Preliminaries -- Rationality And Common Knowledge -- Pinning Down Beliefs: Nash Equilibrium -- Mixed Strategies -- Part Iii: Dynamic Games Of Complete Information. Preliminaries -- Credibility And Sequential Rationality -- Multistage Games -- Repeated Games -- Strategic Bargaining -- Part Iv: Static Games Of Incomplete Information. Bayesian Games -- Auctions And Competitive Bidding -- Mechanism Design -- Part V: Dynamic Games Of Incomplete Information. Sequential Rationality With Incomplete Information -- Signaling Games -- Building A Reputation -- Information Transmission And Cheap Talk -- Mathematical Appendix. Steven Tadelis. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 385-388) And Index.

EXPANDED THIRD EDITION includes Charlie's 2007 USC Law School Commencement address. Edited by Peter D. Kaufman. Brand New.

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe“Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News“Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little BrotherA visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness.With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games.Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.

In your pocket is something amazing: a quick and easy way to summon a total stranger who will take you anywhere you’d like. In your hands is something equally amazing: the untold story of Uber’s meteoric rise, and the massive ambitions of its larger-than-life founder and CEO.Before Travis Kalanick became famous as the public face of Uber, he was a scrappy, rough-edged, loose-lipped entrepreneur. And even after taking Uber from the germ of an idea to a $69 billion global transportation behemoth, he still describes his company as a start-up. Like other Silicon Valley icons such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, he’s always focused on the next disruptive innovation and the next world to conquer.Both Uber and Kalanick have acquired a reputation for being combative, relentless, and iron-fisted against competitors. They’ve inspired both admiration and loathing as they’ve flouted government regulators, thrown the taxi industry into a tailspin, and stirred controversy over possible exploitation of drivers. They’ve even reshaped the deeply ingrained consumer behavior of not accepting a ride from a stranger—against the childhood warnings from everyone’s parents.Wild Ride is the first truly inside look at Uber’s global empire. Veteran journalist Adam Lashinsky, the bestselling author of Inside Apple, traces the origins of Kalanick’s massive ambitions in his humble roots, and he explores Uber’s murky beginnings and the wild ride of its rapid growth and expansion into different industries.Lashinsky draws on exclusive, in-depth interviews with Kalanick and many other sources who share new details about Uber’s internal and external power struggles. He also examines its doomed venture into China and the furtive fight between Kalanick and his competitors at Google, Tesla, Lyft, and GM over self-driving cars. Lashinsky even got behind the wheel as an Uber driver himself to learn what it’s really like.Uber has made headlines thanks to its eye-popping valuations and swift expansion around the world. But this book is the first account of how Uber really became the giant it is today, and how it plans to conquer the future.

*Major New York Times Bestseller*More than 2.6 million copies sold*One of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year*Selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best nonfiction books of the year*Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient*Daniel Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's best-selling The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our MindsIn his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Topping bestseller lists for almost ten years, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a contemporary classic, an essential book that has changed the lives of millions of readers.

Now In Its Second Edition, This Popular Textbook On Game Theory Is Unrivalled In The Breadth Of Its Coverage, The Thoroughness Of Technical Explanations And The Number Of Worked Examples Included. Covering Non-cooperative And Cooperative Games, This Introduction To Game Theory Includes Advanced Chapters On Auctions, Games With Incomplete Information, Games With Vector Payoffs, Stable Matchings And The Bargaining Set. This Edition Contains New Material On Stochastic Games, Rationalizability, And The Continuity Of The Set Of Equilibrium Points With Respect To The Data Of The Game. The Material Is Presented Clearly And Every Concept Is Illustrated With Concrete Examples From A Range Of Disciplines. With Numerous Exercises, And The Addition Of A Solution Manual With This Edition, The Book Is An Extensive Guide To Game Theory For Undergraduate Through Graduate Courses In Economics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering And Life Sciences, And Will Also Serve As Useful Reference For Researchers.

General Introduction To The Theory Of Games -- Utility Theory -- Extensive And Normal Forms -- Two-person Zero-sum Games -- Two-person Non-zero-sum Non-cooperative Games -- Two-person Cooperative Games -- Theories Of N-person Games In Normal Form -- Characteristic Functions -- Solutions -- Psi-stability -- Reasonable Outcomes And Value -- Applications Of N-person Theory -- Individual Decision Making Under Uncertainty -- Group Decision Making -- Appendices : 1. A Probabilistic Theory Of Utility -- 2. The Minimax Theorem -- 3. First Geometrical Interpretation Of A Two-person Zero-sum Game -- 4. Second Geometrical Interpretation Of A Two-person Zero-sum Game -- 5. Linear Programing And Two-person Zero-sum Games -- 6. Solving Two-person Zero-sum Games -- 7. Games With Infinite Pure Strategy Sets -- 8. Sequential Compounding Of Two-person Games. R. Duncan Luce, Howard Raiffa. Reprint. Originally Published: New York : Wiley, 1957. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 485-499.

Unlock your creativity.An inspiring guide to creativity in the digital age, Steal Like an Artist presents ten transformative principles that will help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life.Nothing is original, so embrace influence, school yourself through the work of others, remix and reimagine to discover your own path. Follow interests wherever they take you—what feels like a hobby may turn into you life’s work. Forget the old cliché about writing what you know: Instead, write the book you want to read, make the movie you want to watch.And finally, stay Smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring in the everyday world so that you have the space to be wild and daring in your imagination and your work.“Brilliant and real and true.”—Rosanne Cash

Now available in paperback, with an all new Reader's guide, The New York Times and Business Week bestseller Co-opetition revolutionized the game of business. With over 40,000 copies sold and now in its 9th printing, Co-opetition is a business strategy that goes beyond the old rules of competition and cooperation to combine the advantages of both. Co-opetition is a pioneering, high profit means of leveraging business relationships.Intel, Nintendo, American Express, NutraSweet, American Airlines, and dozens of other companies have been using the strategies of co-opetition to change the game of business to their benefit. Formulating strategies based on game theory, authors Brandenburger and Nalebuff created a book that's insightful and instructive for managers eager to move their companies into a new mind set.

This book introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience: those who will later construct or consume game-theoretic models. Robert Gibbons addresses scholars in applied fields within economics who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works overly abstract. Gibbons emphasizes the economic applications of the theory at least as much as the pure theory itself; formal arguments about abstract games play a minor role. The applications illustrate the process of model building—of translating an informal description of a multi-person decision situation into a formal game-theoretic problem to be analyzed. Also, the variety of applications shows that similar issues arise in different areas of economics, and that the same game-theoretic tools can be applied in each setting. In order to emphasize the broad potential scope of the theory, conventional applications from industrial organization have been largely replaced by applications from labor, macro, and other applied fields in economics. The book covers four classes of games, and four corresponding notions of equilibrium: static games of complete information and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games of complete information and subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, static games of incomplete information and Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and dynamic games of incomplete information and perfect Bayesian equilibrium.

John Von Neumann And Oskar Morgenstern. This Ed. Originally Published: 2004. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Mode Of Access: World Wide Web.

1. Evolving New Strategies -- 2. Coping With Noise -- 3. Promoting Norms -- 4. Choosing Sides -- 5. Setting Standards -- 6. Building New Political Actors -- 7. Disseminating Culture -- App. A. Replication Of Agent-based Models -- App. B. Resources For Agent-based Modeling. Robert Axelrod. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

This book discusses the main shortcomings of the classical solution concept from noncooperative game theory (that of Nash equilibria) and provides a comprehensive study of the more refined concepts (such as sequential, perfect, proper and stable equilibria) that have been introduced to overcome these drawbacks. The plausibility of the assumptions underlying each such concept are discussed, desirable properties as well as deficiencies are illustrated, characterizations are derived and the relationships between the various concepts are studied. The first six chapters provide an informal discussion with many examples as well as a comprehensive overview for normal form games. The remaining chapters are devoted to specific applications, illustrating the strength (resp. weakness) of the various concepts.

Preface To The New Edition -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Micromotives And Macrobehavior -- 2. The Inescapable Mathematics Of Musical Chairs -- 3. Thermostats, Lemons, And Other Families Of Models -- 4. Sorting And Mixing : Race And Sex -- 5. Sorting And Mixing : Age And Income -- 6. Choosing Our Children's Genes -- 7. Hockey Helmets, Daylight Saving, And Other Binary Choices -- 8. An Astonishing Sixty Years : The Legacy Of Hiroshima (the Nobel Lecture) -- Index. Thomas C. Schelling. New Edition--p. 3. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

This book lays out foundations for a "science of morals." Binmore uses game theory as a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters. He reinterprets classical social contract ideas within a game-theory framework and generates new insights into the fundamental questions of social philosophy. In contrast to the previous writing in moral philosophy that relied on vague notion such as " societal well-being" and "moral duty," Binmore begins with individuals; rational decision-makers with the ability to empathize with one another. Any social arrangement that prescribes them to act against their interests will become unstable and eventually will be replaced by another, until one is found that includes worthwhile actions for all individuals involved.

At least five U.S. presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate, but these results were not inevitable. In fact, such an unfair outcome need never happen again, and as William Poundstone shows in Gaming the Vote, the solution is lurking right under our noses. In all five cases, the vote was upset by a 'spoiler'-a minor candidate who took enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election to someone else. The spoiler effect is more than a glitch. It is a consequence of one of the most surprising intellectual discoveries of the twentieth century: the 'impossibility theorem' of the Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow. His theorem asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair-a finding that has not been lost on today’s political consultants. Armed with polls, focus groups, and smear campaigns, political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. The answer to the spoiler problem lies in a system called range voting, which would satisfy both right and left, and Gaming the Vote assesses the obstacles confronting any attempt to change the U.S. electoral system. The latest of several books by Poundstone on the theme of how important scientific ideas have affected the real world, Gaming the Vote is both a wry exposé of how the political system really works and a call to action.

Should you watch public television without pledging?...Exceed the posted speed limit?...Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the so-called prisoner's dilemma, a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner's dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science, an idea that has influenced leaders across the political spectrum and informed our views of conflicts ranging from the Cuban missile crisis to the Persian Gulf War. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann--father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century--to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery. Called the prisoner's dilemma, it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. Introduced shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb, the prisoner's dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann and Bertrand Russell joined military and political leaders in rallying to the preventive war movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the United States entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy--alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them. A masterful work of science writing, Prisoner's Dilemma weaves together a biography of the brilliant and tragic von Neumann, a history of pivotal phases of the cold war, and an investigation of game theory's far-reaching influence on public policy t Publishers Weekly Poundstone's three-dimensional outline of game theory mathematics sketches the life of its inventor, John von Neumann, and his role in Cold War policy-making. Photos. (Feb.)