Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk [Taschenbuch]

This is a journey that begins with the importatioin of the arabic numbering system to the West and ends with super-computer crunched chaos theory. In between lie the fathers (all men) of mathamatical understanding. These individuals are the story of AGAINST THE GODS. Bernstein survey's the intellectual contrubutions of each as man strives to understood basic probability, the law of large numbers, bell curves, regression analysis, uncertainty theory and everything else you dimly remember from college statistics classes. He spends the latter quarter of the book on risk and probability theory in the financial world, where theorists have developed portfolio analysis, volitility studies, hedging and sidebets and other quantatative market plays.

Credit to the author for balancing his story against the very high probability that much of what these thinkers sought may be unattainable. He frequently mentions the humanity that these people try to explain with laws formulated from observations in the natural world. Although rightly impressed with his intellectual frontiersmen, Bernstein has no problem recognizing that the uncertainty that has always eluded explanation is us and that it helps make life worth living and progress possible.

This book is interesting for what it is. A story of the development of theories. I would have enjoyed more of a focus on the applications of this intellectual progression that led to the development of insurance and financial markets. Though these elements are mentioned often, they provide the backdrop for Bernsteins survey of theory. I suspect another book awaits someone who will reverse the order and use theory as a backdrop for the mechanisms that have allowed the modern economy to flourish and develop. The story of insurance, speculation, the beginning of capital markets, a monied economy and the like spring from the intellectual movements so well chronicled by Bernstein. However, they are not the focus, which has the habit of making the reading dry and sometimes uninteresting to those not captivated by the actual numeric analyses and proofs which are amply offerred over the course of the book.

If you like intellectual history and are looking to tie the building blocks of probability and risk analysis together over the last four centuries than this book may well captivate you. If you are seeking an understanding of how these discoveries were applied to forge the modern economy we now take for granted you will find parts interesting but may well feel that the story is incomplete.

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The first obvious error occurs on page 31, where an ancient algebra problem is solved with the wrong answer. Perhaps a typo, but such typos continue. More egregious is Berstein's proof through assertion or simple dismissal. Eg., "Without the concept of zero...a negative number is a logical impossiblity." Perhaps true, but I guess we must take your word for it...

The book is really at its best when it is at its worst; or you will learn from this book when someone who really 'knows' tears it apart. As it is, it provokes thought, and although much of it is erroneous, even a fallacious thought is more than most books stir.

It is a fun and provacative book, but like most maverick things, it is in itself a big risk. Some of his gambles pay off, others don't. This book needs an expert to tidy it up (and he might just throw it out the window).

But in the final analysis, more academics should take risks like PB and risk making mistakes--over-professionalization so favored and demanded by most is making academia a most stale and dessicated place: all know more and more about less and less. PB is not academic (he seems to know a little about a lot) and ironically this gives him the oportunity to experiment and fail, at least with books and ideas, with relative impunity. Or to put it another far more blunt way, a historian or a mathmatician could lose his tenure over authoring this book. I recommend this book.

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