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.
A reconstruction of the creation of game theory in the twentieth century by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.
A Dublin native, Robert Leonard writes about the history of twentieth-century economics and the social sciences in scientific and cultural context. His work has appeared in a range of journals in economics and the history of science, including the Economic Journal, History of Political Economy and Isis. His 1995 article in the Journal of Economic Literature, from which the present book grew, won the Best Article Award of the History of Economics Society. Leonard is Professor of Economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
'Robert Leonard toiled for more than a decade on his manuscript on
the creators and creation of game theory. His nuanced account is
'thick history' at its best; he captures the protagonists and their
milieu with precision and flair. It is a signal achievement.' Bruce
Caldwell, Duke University
'The publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John
von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944 was hailed by one
reviewer as 'one of the major scientific achievements of the first
half of the twentieth century'. In this exemplary study in the
history of economics, Robert Leonard has given us a masterful
account of the gestation of this work, starting with the importance
of chess in European intellectual life at the beginning of the
twentieth century and ending with the military applications of game
theory at the RAND Corporation during the middle of the century.
Leonard has given us absorbing parallel biographies of von Neumann
and Morgenstern, while painting a fascinating background of the
Hungarian mathematical scene and the Viennese economic world. Every
practitioner of game theory and every student of twentieth-century
intellectual history should read this book.' Harold W. Kuhn,
Princeton University
'Robert Leonard excavates a multifarious genealogy for John von
Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's pioneering Theory of Games and
Economic Behavior across a landscape that features some of the
early twentieth century's key sites of mathematical aspiration,
economic disputation, and political and personal tragedy.' Ted
Porter, University of California, Los Angeles
'This fine book provides a rich context for the understanding of
the Austrian school of economics together with the mathematics of
Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere that culminated in the theory of
games. It is the product of many years of scholarship and presents
much information basically unknown to those who came to game theory
after the 1940s.' Martin Shubik, Journal of Economic Literature
'Leonard unpacks the contributions of developments in psychology,
philosophy, mathematics, economics, and politics to the origins of
game theory. He shows how external events - the rise of Nazism,
World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War - interacted with
the personalities of von Neumann and Morgenstern and their
successors to shape the development of the theory itself and the
unanticipated uses to which it has been put. The result is a book
that combines the rigor of a textbook with the excitement of a
historical novel.' Marina von Neumann Whitman, University of
Michigan
'Leonard's masterful fresco follows the development of game theory
from its prelude in turn-of-the-century Vienna chess cafes and the
mathematical circles of Hungary to its multifarious first steps in
the writings of Borel and Zermelo …' Giacomo Sillari, History of
Economic Thought and Policy
'Von Neumann and Morgenstern's landmark 1944 book, Theory of Games
and Economic Behavior, has long proven enigmatic. As is well known,
the book's immediate impact on economic theory was minor, yet it
has been widely cited as the inspiration for game theory as it has
infiltrated economics since the 1980s … What is clear is that
[this] book represents immense achievement in the way it links the
histories of science, economics, and cultural and social history
through the early careers of John von Neumann and Oskar
Morgenstern. To a broader audience, its attention to social and
political context will make parts of the book read like a
page-turner, while it will remain a rich resource for the scholarly
initiate.' Journal of Economics and Philosophy
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