Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory: From Chess to Social Science, 1900-1960 (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 10/4/2012
EAN 9781107609266, ISBN10: 1107609267
Paperback, 424 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
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.
Introduction
Part I. Struggle and Equilibrium
From Lasker to von Neumann
1. 'The strangest states of mind'
chess, psychology and Emanuel Lasker's Kampf
2. 'Deeply rooted yet alien'
Hungarian Jews and mathematicians
3. From Budapest to Göttingen
an apprenticeship in modern mathematics
4. 'The futile search for the perfect formula'
von Neumann's minimax theorem
Part II. Oskar Morgenstern and Interwar Vienna
5. Equilibrium on trial
the young Morgenstern and the Austrian school
6. Wrestling with complexity
Wirtschaftsprognose and beyond
7. Ethics and the excluded middle
Karl Menger and social science
8. From Austroliberalism to Anschluss
the Viennese economists in the 1930s
Part III. From War to Cold War
9. Mathematics and the social order
von Neumann's return to game theory
10. Ars combinatoria
writing the theory of games
11. Morgenstern's catharsis
12. Von Neumann's war
13. Social science and the 'present danger'
game theory and psychology at the RAND Corporation, 1946–60
Conclusion.