Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the creation of game theory : from chess to social science, 1900--1960

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Title:

Author:

Leonard, Robert, 1962-

ISBN:

9780521562669

Personal Author:

Leonard, Robert, 1962-

Publication Information:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Physical Description:

x, 390 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Series:

Historical perspectives on modern economics

Historical perspectives on modern economics.

Contents:

"The strangest states of mind": chess, psychology and Emanuel Lasker's Kampf -- "Deeply rooted, yet alien" : Hungarian Jews and Mathematicians -- From Budapest to Göttingen: an apprenticeship in modern mathematics -- "The futile search for the perfect formula": Von Neumann's minimax theorem -- Equilibrium on trial: the Austrian interwar critics -- Wrestling with complexity: Wirtschaftsprognose and beyond -- Ethics and the excluded middle: Karl Menger and social science in interwar Vienna -- From austroliberalism to Anschluss: Morgenstern and the Viennese Economists in the 1930's -- Mathematics and the social order: Von Neumann's return to game theory -- Ars combinatoria: creating the Theory of games -- Morgenstern's catharsis -- Von Neumann's war -- Social science and the "present danger": game theory and psychology at the RAND Corporation, 1946--1960.

Personal Subject:

Von Neumann, John, 1903-1957.

Morgenstern, Oskar, 1902-1977.

Subject Term:

Game theory -- History.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025530631	519.3 L581V 2010	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Drawing on a wealth of archival material, including personal correspondence and diaries, Robert Leonard tells the fascinating story of the creation of game theory by Hungarian Jewish mathematician John von Neumann and Austrian economist Oskar Morgenstern. Game theory first emerged amid discussions of the psychology and mathematics of chess in Germany and fin-de-siècle Austro-Hungary. In the 1930s, on the cusp of anti-Semitism and political upheaval, it was developed by von Neumann into an ambitious theory of social organization. It was shaped still further by its use in combat analysis in World War II and during the Cold War. Interweaving accounts of the period's economics, science, and mathematics, and drawing sensitively on the private lives of von Neumann and Morgenstern, Robert Leonard provides a detailed reconstruction of a complex historical drama.