Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)

by Ken Binmore (Author)
Key Phrases: ultimatum game, driving game, ultimatum minigame, Prisoner's Dilemma, Von Neumann, Matching Pennies (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Games are everywhere: Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. The supermarket's price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. This Very Short Introduction offers a succinct tour of the fascinating world of game theory, a ground-breaking field that analyzes how to play games in a rational way. Ken Binmore, a renowned game theorist, explains the theory in a way that is both entertaining and non-mathematical yet also deeply insightful, revealing how game theory can shed light on everything from social gatherings, to ethical decision-making, to successful card-playing strategies, to calculating the sex ratio among bees. With mini-biographies of many fascinating, and occasionally eccentric, founders of the subject--including John Nash, subject of the movie A Beautiful Mind--this book offers a concise overview of a cutting-edge field that has seen spectacular successes in evolutionary biology and economics, and is beginning to revolutionize other disciplines from psychology to political science.

About the Author

Ken Binmore is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College, London. He has held Chairs in Economics at the London School of Economics and the University of Michigan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199218463
• ISBN-13: 978-0199218462
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #199,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good in parts, November 19, 2007

By	Historied (UK and USA) - See all my reviews

This is a frustrating book to review because it so variable. Clearly Ken Binmore knows much about his subject and there are moments when the book comes alive with insights and crystal clear explanations. You want to cheer. By the time I had finished I knew a lot more about Game Theory than when I started, as is the case with most titles in this excellent series from Oxford. But then you continually hit rather over condensed technical explanations which clearly mean a lot to Ken Binmore, but leave the general reader floundering. He finds it difficult I suspect to put himself in the other's shoes and his editor did not push him hard enough to be clear.The book would benefit from either a technical glossary of key terms used or concise and clear boxed definitions in the text of, for example, Nash Equilibrium. There is not a lot of doubt in this book, which sometimes comes over as arrogant. His dismissal of probably the most useful (to a professional negotiator like myself) book on bargaining 'Getting to Yes' is telling: 'This best seller argues that good bargaining consists of insisting on a fair deal. Thinking strategically is dismissed as a dirty trick!'This misses the fundamental point of Getting to Yes: Interest based bargaining and expanding the size of the pie to be divided creatively. I hope his dismissal of others he disagrees with (and with whom I am less familiar) is more balanced and realistic. Yet there is clearly a very interesting, well informed, intelligent Ken Binmore there to be had, but not consistently. His short explanations of evolutionary game theory and reciprocity are exemplary. And this book made me want to read some of his other work, to see if he is more balanced when he has more space. When he is not being flip his bibliography is outstanding. On balance I would still say: read it!

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not an Introduction!, March 3, 2008

By	Irfan A. Alvi (Towson, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I avoid writing negative reviews, but am willing to do so when there is a need to warn other readers about wasting time and money on a book. This book presents one such occassion.

The problem is simply that this book works very poorly as an introduction. The early parts of the book fail to provide the lay of the land, definitions of terms are unclear, many topics are poorly explained, and all sorts of necessary details are missing.

I see that another reviewer loved the book, but I also get the impression that this reviewer already has some background in game theory (which I don't). Readers with that background might find this book to be a fun and breezy review since they can fill in the missing content but, again, the problem is that this book purports to be an introduction.

Lest anyone think that the real problem was that this book was over my head, I'll just note that I'm an engineer, and I've done fine with plenty of books dealing with math, science, and other analytic subjects, many of which are a good bit more advanced than Binmore's.

I had to cut my losses and abandon this book about a third of the way through, and I'll now be looking again for a game theory book which is genuinely a proper introduction. After reading such a book, perhaps I'll come back to Binmore's book and see if I can get more out of it.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars C for effort, December 29, 2007

By	Bernard VdS - See all my reviews

This short introduction lacks an introduction. Important ideas such as the Nash Equilibrium are not clearly defined. Assumptions are not explicitly stated (e.g. do players make decisions based on the knowledge that the game will be played once, or that it will/may perhaps be repeated a number of times?; What are the player's objective functions? Are they the same for all players? What is the game theorist's objective function?).

In short, the author wrote this book assuming that the reader had already read an introduction to the subject.

It could be a great little book if it were planned a little more carefuly. I would buy the 2nd edition if were improved as an 'introduction'.

P.S. Ken - give us some details of that famous 3G auction which you single-handedly designed. Sounds impressive.