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Game Theory: A critical text

Game theory has sometimes been claimed to be a natural centrepiece for the study of the social sciences. Game Theory: A critical text gives an explanation of the theory for social scientists, looking at topics such as the prisoners dilemma, evolutionary games and psychological games, showing in each case how game theory can be applied to social situations. However the book also discusses many of game theory's failings, thus contesting the excessive claims made for the subject. For instance Nash equilibria are described, followed by many examples in which they quite clearly do not agree with the way people actually behave.

The second edition of this book is more textbooky than the first. This provides a more comprehensive treatment of game theory, and it also gets away from one of the problems of the first edition which was that the discussions began to all look the same after a while. However, the changes do make the book less suitable for those who are interested in the discussions, rather than the technical details. It would be a pity if this meant that fewer people read the book as the discussions are very useful, not just for those interested in game theory or the rationality of human behaviour, but also as an indication of the current status of ideas such as postmodernism and marxism, and indeed of sociology itself.

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Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0415250951
Salesrank: 1166889
Weight:1.72 lbs

Published: 2004 Routledge

Amazon price $67.50

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Amazon.co.uk info

Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0415250951
Salesrank: 219685
Weight:1.72 lbs

Published: 2004 Routledge

Marketplace:New from £32.98:Used from £32.99

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0415250951
Salesrank: 753988
Weight:1.72 lbs

Published: 2004 Routledge

Amazon price CDN$ 77.04

Marketplace:New from CDN$ 74.95:Used from CDN$ 91.26

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Product Description
The ideal primer for those deterred by the technical nature of many textbooks, this title provides a clear explanation for the enduring popularity of game theory and its increasing centrality to the teaching of economics.

Product Description

The ideal primer for those deterred by the technical nature of many textbooks, this title provides a clear explanation for the enduring popularity of game theory and its increasing centrality to the teaching of economics.

Good for application to social sciences; bad for introduction ***
The second edition of this book has the benefit of significant improvements on the first edition. The first was criticized for being incorrect at times; the second book is revised and improved. Generally, the book gives a detailed examination of game theory including all the essential elements. Its applications to the moral, political, and philosophic ideas are well developed and extremely interesting. "The book takes several detours to offer useful expositions of terms and debates such as methodological individualism, common knowledge, equilibrium, learning, morality, norms, etc." as the last review said. These detours prove worthwhile. The book is difficult to follow and poorly organized, in my opinion. It takes significant work to find the essential ideas and suffers from a lack of "introduction". For those unfamiliar with game theory there are many introductory texts that give a better presentation of the basic ideas without having to work as hard. One of these I find particularly helpful is available online (I had found it for free): Game Theory by Turocy and von Stengel which was used as the introductory survey for the Encyclopedia of Information and Systems. Lawyers may find a short pamphlet produced by Kaplow and Shavell "Decision analysis, Game theory, and Information" quite a useful and practical introduction. The advantage of these texts is their length; both can be read within an couple of hours. Also, both of these provide a bibliography for further reading. For the mathematically inclined, the comprehensive treatment by Fudenberg and Tirole, Game Theory, is a classic for a reason. This book is a worthwhile text and can spark significant thought and suggest great research; however, I fear it could scare too many off as an introduction to the (amazing) world of games.

Good for application to social sciences; bad for introduction ***

The second edition of this book has the benefit of significant improvements on the first edition. The first was criticized for being incorrect at times; the second book is revised and improved. Generally, the book gives a detailed examination of game theory including all the essential elements. Its applications to the moral, political, and philosophic ideas are well developed and extremely interesting. "The book takes several detours to offer useful expositions of terms and debates such as methodological individualism, common knowledge, equilibrium, learning, morality, norms, etc." as the last review said. These detours prove worthwhile.

The book is difficult to follow and poorly organized, in my opinion. It takes significant work to find the essential ideas and suffers from a lack of "introduction". For those unfamiliar with game theory there are many introductory texts that give a better presentation of the basic ideas without having to work as hard. One of these I find particularly helpful is available online (I had found it for free): Game Theory by Turocy and von Stengel which was used as the introductory survey for the Encyclopedia of Information and Systems. Lawyers may find a short pamphlet produced by Kaplow and Shavell "Decision analysis, Game theory, and Information" quite a useful and practical introduction. The advantage of these texts is their length; both can be read within an couple of hours. Also, both of these provide a bibliography for further reading. For the mathematically inclined, the comprehensive treatment by Fudenberg and Tirole, Game Theory, is a classic for a reason.

This book is a worthwhile text and can spark significant thought and suggest great research; however, I fear it could scare too many off as an introduction to the (amazing) world of games.

Best critical introduction to game theory, for skeptics *****
This is an excellent book. An introduction to game theory for those who approach the field with some skepticism. The book gives you all the important essential elements of non-cooperative and evolutionary game theory but with a much deeper emphasis on understanding its essential methodological and philosophical underpinnings yet without too much formalism. The authors do a superb job of introducing the topics via a tour of important moral, political, and philosophical ideas and debates mentioning Marx, Smith, Hobbes, Habermas, Hume, Locke and others. The book takes several detours to offer useful expositions of terms and debates such as methodological individualism, common knowledge, equilibrium, learning, morality, norms, etc. I'd recommend this book for two types of people: (1) those who plan to read just one book about game theory (because you don't think it's your cup of tea); and (2) those who plan on learning game theory rigorously (so that you can get a picture of the forest before getting lost in the trees). This is not just one of my favorite books amongst the several books that I have read on game theory and mechanism design, but also one of the most thumbed book in my entire book collection.

Best critical introduction to game theory, for skeptics *****

This is an excellent book. An introduction to game theory for those who approach the field with some skepticism. The book gives you all the important essential elements of non-cooperative and evolutionary game theory but with a much deeper emphasis on understanding its essential methodological and philosophical underpinnings yet without too much formalism. The authors do a superb job of introducing the topics via a tour of important moral, political, and philosophical ideas and debates mentioning Marx, Smith, Hobbes, Habermas, Hume, Locke and others. The book takes several detours to offer useful expositions of terms and debates such as methodological individualism, common knowledge, equilibrium, learning, morality, norms, etc. I'd recommend this book for two types of people: (1) those who plan to read just one book about game theory (because you don't think it's your cup of tea); and (2) those who plan on learning game theory rigorously (so that you can get a picture of the forest before getting lost in the trees).
This is not just one of my favorite books amongst the several books that I have read on game theory and mechanism design, but also one of the most thumbed book in my entire book collection.

Shaun P Hargreaves Heap and Yanis Varoufakis

Game Theory: A critical text