Dr. Strangelove's Game: A Brief History of Economic Genius - Brossura

Strathern, Paul

Brossura

ISBN 10: 067697449X ISBN 13: 9780676974492

Casa editrice: Vintage Canada, 2002

Riassunto

Brilliantly entertaining, Dr. Strangelove’s Game will do for economics what Sophie’s World did for philosophy and E=mc2 for physics.

With the infectious enthusiasm of a great teacher and a novelist’s eye for a colourful parade of often bizarre and idiosyncratic figures, Paul Strathern gives us a vivid account of the world of economics through the lives and minds of those who contributed to the growth of economic thought from the Middle Ages to the present.

The familiar and iconic names – Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes – turn out to be fascinating characters, as do a host of lesser-known figures – from Luca Pacioli, a medieval monk who used a ball game to stimulate thought about probability theory (and gambling) to John von Neumann, the manic genius who invented game theory, worked on the atomic bomb, and was probably the model for Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. There are pessimistic priests, visionary socialists, crackpot academics, and an alleged murderer who controlled France’s finances.

Paul Strathern sets their lives and thoughts against the dramatic backdrop of great events – the South Sea Bubble, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the Great Crash. His lightly worn erudition makes Dr. Strangelove’s Game amazingly accessible, leaving readers enriched and enlightened.
From the Hardcover edition.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Praise for Dr. Strangelove's Game:

“[It] presents important economic ideas in an entertaining and eminently readable manner. Strathern brings the passion of a professor with a novelist’s eye for the interesting story. If we professors were all this interesting, our lectures would be better attended; the economy might even be better for it.... [What] a pleasure to come across a book that makes the history of economic thought a good read.” -- The Globe and Mail

“Buy this book and laugh your way to an education. It is a tour de force, remarkable for taking economics -- the dismal science -- and making it amusing. Strathern has a deft touch for animating the biographies not only of the classic economists, but also those thinkers who developed game theory and other advances in the sciences of prediction. ‘Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side,’ Oscar Wilde said of economics. Strathern knows where to find it.” -- Thomas A. Bass, author of The Eudaemonic Pie

"An entertaining look at the minds that spawned modern-day economics.... Rarely has so much dry theory been repackaged in such an engaging way. If my university lecturers had spent a little more time talking about Marx and the maid, or Keynes and his Russian ballerina, I might not have nodded off quite so often during discussion of these giants' ground-breaking work." -- Globe and Mail's ROB Magazine

Praise for Mendeleyev’s Dream:

“A wonderfully entertaining and stimulating journey from alchemy to chemistry in search of the elements of our universe. It is a book of great clarity and depth.” — Jim Crace

L'autore:

Born in London in 1940, Paul Strathern lectures in philosophy and science at Kingston University. He is the author of Mendeleyev’s Dream and the Somerset Maugham prize-winning novel A Season in Abyssinia. He lives in London.
From the Hardcover edition.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Vintage Canada
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• ISBN 10: 067697449X
• ISBN 13: 9780676974492
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 352