Game Theory and Cold War Rationality: A Review Essay

E. Roy Weintraub

No 2016-19, Center for the History of Political Economy Working Paper Series from Center for the History of Political Economy

Abstract: This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books The World the Game Theorists Made by Paul Erickson and How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind by Paul Erickson, Judy Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca Lemov, Thomas Sturm, and Michael Gordin raise a number of complex historical questions about the interconnections among game theory, utility theory, decision-theory, optimization theory, information theory and theories of rational choice. Moreover the contingencies of time, place, and person call into question the usefulness of economists’ linear narratives about the autonomous and progressive development of modern economics. The essay finally reflects on the challenges that these issues present for historians of recent economics.

Keywords: game theory; rational choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 A12 B2 C02 C6 C7 D01 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-his and nep-hpe
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hope.econ.duke.edu/node/1254 main text
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://hope.econ.duke.edu/node/1254 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://hope.econ.duke.edu/node/1254)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hec:heccee:2016-19

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Center for the History of Political Economy Working Paper Series from Center for the History of Political Economy Center for the History of Political Economy Box 90097 Durham, NC 27708-0097.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster ().