The Essential John Nash

Rating:
Summary: This is good but technical
Review: That is basically what I have to say. Look I'm no dummy and I'm a math major, but most of this is way beyond someone without a graduate degree in math. I managed to work out that the Nash equilibrium occurs in two space (I think) and that Nash embedding requires instruction in topology. I'm not saying it's not a good book, but it's a piece of work. Which is why I gave it three stars. The findings are important, the writing good, the commentary interesting, but this is over my head.

Rating:
Summary: consumer warning, for fans of the movie
Review: This book is a collection of Nash's most important papers in math and game theory. If you are just curious about Nash's life, there is little of interest to you here, except some photographs. If you are a scientist who wants Nash's most important work in one relatively cheap volume, this is the book for you. (Unfortunately, the book does not contain his hard-to-find article "The Arc Structure of Singularities"--I suppose that one was considered "incidental" John Nash, or perhaps there were copyright problems).

Rating:
Summary: Essential... Academically speaking...
Review: Valuable collection of Nash's articles and academic publications. Those who are just curious about Nash's life could be disappointed to find out that just a few pages are intended to fulfill non mathematical curiosity. The initial chapters on his biography introduces some of the most elegant mathematical demonstrations in game theory and pure math.