Rating: 
Summary: Excellent from the history perspective ...
Review: ... but weak on insights into today's world
Rating:
Summary: Fun and educational read.
Review: "Against the gods" is, on the whole, a fun read, but comes across as a little dry at times, especially when the author seeks to explain the nitty gritty on the more obscure stuff, such as the probability of obtaining a particular number in the throw of die when n die are thrown, or the number of throws required to optimise the probability of obtaining a desired number, etc.....you get the picture. I particularly liked the insightful little bits on history, such as the Renaissance Movement, and those on history's equally famous but obscure mathematicians such as Girolamo Cardano, and the intriguing puzzles such as the one on Diophante's age. A light academic exercise that will shed light on the mysteries of risk management and the mathematics of probability.
Rating: 
Summary: Stunning!
Review: It is true what they say... you do have to like the subject to like this book. But, if that be the case, you will love this book. Bernstein weaves such a tale of ancient exploration into the unknown of the time, that it is hard to put down the book. Although I am a risk practitioner, the rich history contained in the book has added significant depth to my understanding of risk management.
Rating:
Summary: A great math+history book
Review: It's difficult to find a way to teach numeric matters in a written book without using numbers. In this case, the author found the way. I highly recomend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but can be tedious
Review: you really gotta like the subject to get this book
Rating:
Summary: a bit disappointed
Review: This is just historical review of risk managment. It gives u a lot of historical eveidence but not much insights.
Rating:
Summary: Well written - almost a masterpiece !
Review: As much as I enjoy making money in sales, I never quite like the downside risk..but it's the name of the game. This book shed a very interesting light on risk ..especially when you realize even Laplace and Gauss had difficulties with it ! Excellent examples, insights and depths. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Good Academic Book
Review: To most students, Statistics is a very dry subject, especially if the teacher just teach from the book. Try reading this book, it will give you a fresh appreciation of statistics. The description of the evolution of statistics from ancient Greek to the derivation of the Bell curve distribution has brought life into statistics. All statistics teachers and students should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting historical treatment of human risk decisions
Review: This book was recommended to me by my otolaryngologist, why I do not know, unless it was prefatory to our discussion of the risks of neck surgery. I found it primarily helpful to realize the amazing precocity of the mathematicians at very tender ages. I in turn recommended the book and gave it to my good friend, an actuary, for his library (not for mine)! He commented that he was aware of all the material, but would peruse it anyway, just because I recommended it! Since I am a retired Judge, I have no knowledge of risk(!!!)
Rating: 
Summary: Pure Drivel
Review: I don't mind reading laymen accounts of the history of science, but this book contained so many misleading themes and faulty applications that they overwhelmed the whimsical anecdotes of famous historical figures. For example, there's the issue of mean reversion. Bernstein implies that this phenomenon has significant application to financial markets (what goes up must come down). The evidence of this in finance is pretty meager in spite of mounds of data mined by researchers over the last 50 years, and mentioning DeBondt and Thaler only proves the author's selective and uncritical reading of the current literature (sort of like a popular anthropology text citing Margaret Meade's thoroughly discredited Coming of Age in Samoa). Khaneman and Tversky's work gets great mention, but its application towards financial markets is purely anecdotal, as reflected by his continual references to WSJ articles as confirmation. How about the CAPM debate or the equity premium puzzle? These are the big puzzles in current finance. A casual reader looking for an insight into the current state of affairs in finance, including lots of anecdotal biographical sketches, would do much better reading Malkiel's classic Random Walk Down Wall Street, which through updates hasn't lost its edge.
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