Nice review of a great book I reviewed last year and which was subsequently published in Challenge.
Best bit of this review:
Looking beyond the superficial, three other traits stand out. First, many of these economists have over the course of their professional lives been able to strike a balance between working on fairly abstract problems and very practical ones. The practical problem-solving often came about because many of the older economists helped their defense establishments during the Second World War and the Cold War. Aumann, for instance, worked on the abstract mathematical problems, but also used game theory for very practical matters like how best to defend a city from a squadron of aircraft, most of which were decoys but a small percentage carried weapons. He was also one of a group of game theorists involved in the arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1960s—this followed the Cuban missile crisis during which, Aumann says, U.S. President Kennedy was influenced by the game-theoretic school in international relations, which was prominent at the time.
One small thing though. It's a book review. A 1,000 word book review. Why are does the author cite themselves twice? Self citation doesn't make a lot of sense. Or does it?
link, via Bayesian Heresy.