Toward a History of Game Theory (Volume 24) (History of Political Economy Annual Supplement) - Hardcover

9780822312536: Toward a History of Game Theory (Volume 24) (History of Political Economy Annual Supplement)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822312530 ISBN 13: 9780822312536

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 1995

During the 1940s "game theory" emerged from the fields of mathematics and economics to provide a revolutionary new method of analysis. Today game theory provides a language for discussing conflict and cooperation not only for economists, but also for business analysts, sociologists, war planners, international relations theorists, and evolutionary biologists. Toward a History of Game Theory offers the first history of the development, reception, and dissemination of this crucial theory.

Drawing on interviews with original members of the game theory community and on the Morgenstern diaries, the first section of the book examines early work in game theory. It focuses on the groundbreaking role of the von Neumann-Morgenstern collaborative work, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944). The second section recounts the reception of this new theory, revealing just how game theory made its way into the literatures of the time and thus became known among relevant communities of scholars. The contributors explore how game theory became a wedge in opening up the social sciences to mathematical tools and use the personal recollections of scholars who taught at Michigan and Princeton in the late 1940s to show why the theory captivated those practitioners now considered to be "giants" in the field. The final section traces the flow of the ideas of game theory into political science, operations research, and experimental economics.

Contributors. Mary Ann Dimand, Robert W. Dimand, Robert J. Leonard, Philip Mirowski, Angela M. O'Rand, Howard Raiffa, Urs Rellstab, Robin E. Rider, William H. Riker, Andrew Schotter, Martin Shubik, Vernon L. Smith

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About the Author:

E. Roy Weintraub is Professor of Economics at Duke University. He is the editor of Toward a History of Game Theory, also published by Duke University Press, and the author of numerous books, including Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing Economic Knowledge.

E. Roy Weintraub is a Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Social and Historical Studies of Science, Duke University. He is the author of GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS: STUDIES IN APPRAISAL (Michigan, 1993); STABILIZING DYNAMICS: CONSTRUCTING ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE (Cambridge, 1991); MATHEMATICS FOR ECONOMISTS: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH (Cambridge, 1982); MICROFOUNDATIONS: THE COMPATIBILITY OF MICROECONOMICS AND MACROECONOMICS (Cambridge, 1979); CONFLICT AND CO-OPERATION IN ECONOMICS (Macmillan, 1975); GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM THEORY (Macmillan, 1974). He is the co-editor of the Science and Cultural Theory series at Duke University Press.

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