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Summary: Excellent first chapter that is repeated throughout the book
Review: This book has a wonderful first chapter that Axelrod repeats throughout the book. Axelrod uses computer simulations to develop game theory and devise strategies that result in collaborative behaiviors. While Axelrod's findings can be applied to other fields, such as politics or interpersonal relationships, it should be noted that Axelrod is dealing with very precisely (and arbitrarily) defined initial conditions and constraints that are not at all gauranteed to exist outside the world of computer simulations. Generally speaking, the first chapter is excellent and offers a ray of hope that collaborative behaiviors can and will evolve on their own; on the other hand, the rest of the book is repetative and highly arbitrary.
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Summary: A true classic
Review: This book has information for military theorists, biologists exploring gene regulation, antitrust policy-makers, and Miss Manners. It is a wonderfully clear explanation of how almost any two entities, interacting over time, develop a mutualism more profitable than greed. The experimental support for these claims comes from a series of contests. Dozens of authors provided computer programs to play in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma - a simple model, but one that describes a surprising number of real-world phenomena. Most importantly, it's a testable model. It almost puts a common aspect of social interaction into a test tube. What came out of that test tube was startling in its clarity and simplicity. The book is very readable. Axelrod segregates the mathematical and non-mathematical discussions with some care. Math-free readers see the whole set of experiments and conclusions, clearly explained, and need to skip only a few paragraphs during the main discussion. The last few chapters reward math-positive readers with additional precision and rigor. Even then, the math is accessible to someone with good high-school algebra skills. Axelrod's discussion truly timeless, except for references to the Cold War as current events. I can accept that. Even though that un-war is mostly over, it's a critical part of modern history and it still informs current policy. Any insight into that madness helps, and Axelrod is very helpful. This book stands above any one category. It's one of very few that I recommend to the bookshelves of every educated person.
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Summary: Quite possibly one of the 5 best books I've ever read.
Review: This book is a must for anyone analyzing the dynamics of persons and groups. I've found most useful when analyzing crime prevention policy, and in particular, when searching for the proper structure of legislation. I believe that anyone in a position to design norms, be that legislators, policy analysts or business managers, would find this book of enormous help. It is basically, the rules that govern the basic structure of interaction between multiple players. If you ever need to design or build a "path of least resistance," this is the book for you.
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Summary: Wonderfully insightful
Review: This book is a must-read not only for students (broadly defined) of the social sciences, but also for politicians and bureaucrats, especially those in charge of military and foreign affairs. Axelrod's book is a tour-de-force in multi-method approaches. Although the author is a trifle repetitive and occasionally laborious, I think the profound content of the book far outweighs the minor inadequacies of its form. At the risk of sounding like a logical positivist, I would venture to say that Axelrod's approach offers hope for a bottom-up construction of cooperation in an uncertain world without a central authority.
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Summary: Who'd have thougt tit-for-tat makes sense?
Review: This book is a stunningly lucid combination of game theory, computer science, strategy and evolutionary psychology. I always eschew any kind of 'business' book, and encountered this in the course of a computer research project, but it has had great influence on my thinking in a variety of personal and professional fields. From first principles, and using ingenious empirical techniques, the author extrapolates from a simple so-called 'prisoner's dilemma' (would you betray a friend to save your neck?) right out to some extremely persuasive and general lessons on the conduct of potentially adversarial relationships. The conclusions he draws are both powerful in their application, and refreshingly humane in what they imply for optimal behaviour in stable societies. I'd rate this above even Kuhn's 'structure of scientific revolutions' as a piece of nominally scientific writing that has widespread relevance beyond the field for which it was intended.
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Summary: A future classic
Review: This book shatters illusions of both the left and the right, and provides a basis for formulating a new theory of social organization. A hundred years from now people will look back on this book and place it along side works such as 'The Origin of Species', 'The Prince', and the Declaration of Independance.
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Summary: *The* book on reciprocal altruism; the best news in years
Review: This is one of the most important books in social, evolutionary, and moral theory. It is also a powerful message of hope. Axelrod shows that cooperation, rather than backstabbing or predation, can "win" the evolutionary struggle. This work has inspired a whole new field of research, and it is also a great read
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Summary: Insights into Open Source Development
Review: Though I've never seen the two linked elsewhere, this book explains how Linux and Open Source developers can succeed in a world populated by back-stabbing defectors. A wonderful book and an easy read. Recomended for anyone who cooperates. For business readers, consider Co-opetition by Nalebuff etal and the Death of Competition by Moore.
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Summary: Awesome!
Review: Want a deterministic explanation about how cooperation evolved from selfinshness? No more hypotesis, no more expeculations, no more theories. This book will explain you with facts, rules and basic algorithms how that happens. On top of that the style used is very easy to follow. The findings have so many levels that talking about cooperation in bacteria colonies or in human societies would reduced the scope of this book. You can find analogies everywhere for these findings and verify their accuracy. But, regardless, the models explained here will definitely give you a new perspective and a new way to see things in life.
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