Good Books: Part 2 - The Strategy of Conflict

一個多月前Thomas Schelling來台訪問，並且有來我們學校參訪。我想介紹The Strategy of Conflict這一本書。我非常推薦這本書，尤其是賽局理論的初學者，或是學了賽局後遺忘了它的真諦的人也可拿來看看。最近台灣有中文版。以下是我在Amazon寫的推薦及介紹:

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Everyone should read this book, September 7, 2006

Reviewer:

P.C. "Popcorn" (Taiwan) - See all my reviews

"The Strategy of Conflict" changed the development of game theory in several ways, but none was more important than Schelling's focus on real life examples, situations or games that are relevant to what we encounter in our daily lives. Before Schelling, game theory analysis was abstract and mathematical; it focused on zero-sum games, where interests were purely conflicting and there were no incentives to cooperate. Game theorists built convincing abstract models for these types of games, but its application was limited, since most interactions were a mixture of conflict and mutual dependence. In other words, analysis focused on pure conflict, a limiting cases of real world interactions, while in "The Strategy of Conflict" Schelling attempts to generalize game theory analysis to richer games that are `played' in the real world. His generalization introduced the concepts, commitments, threats, promises, communication systems, focal points, and randomization of strategies into game theory (chapters 1~8), which was then used to analyze the its applications in national security (chapters 9 and 10).

If you are studying game theory, this book is a must read. If you are just interested in game theory, I'd recommend reading this book too.