Product Title:
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
Description:
Advance Praise for Against the Gods
“with his wonderful knowledge of the history & actual manifestations of risk, Peter Bernstein leads us into the gods. Nothing like it is from the financial world this year or ever will. I speak carefully: no one it should miss. “-John Kenneth Galbraith, emeritus professor of economics at Harvard University
” No one else could have written a book of such central importance with so much charm & enthusiasm. “Robert Heilbronerc-author of the worldly philosophers’ p> “A fascinating & unusual perspective on modern man reads Promethean in order into control the risk. The book is easy into provoke & into reflect a rare combination.” William Kristol, editor & publisher, The Weekly Standard
“Peter Bernstein leads us through the history of the danger because he writes so beautifully. This is a book about a subject, the left brain right brain readers food for more! “-Robert Ferguson will be Managing Director, Bankers Trust Australia Limited
” In Against the Gods, Peter Bernstein, a scholar, historian & successful investor gives us the history of the great thinkers whose visions of the future has been in the service of presence. “-Dr. Marc Faber, managing director Marc Faber Limited. Hong Kong
“It seems into me like a new classic” M. Barton Biggs, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asset Management, Inc.
“It’s a Sizzler!” Author Charles P. Kindleberger Manias, Panics & ;
Crashes In this unique exploration of the role of risk management in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas of modern times is different from the more distant past. Against the Gods, a narrative that reads like a novel, chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles & soothsayers by the powerful tools of risk management, today we have available. This is a richly-woven history of the Greek philosopher & mathematician, Arab, businessmen & scientists, gamblers & philosophers, world-renowned intellectuals & dark, but inspired amateurs helped discover, the modern methods of implementation of the future in the service of the present, instead helplessness before fate choice & decision. When investors buy shares
flying operations surgeons, engineers designing bridges, entrepreneurs start new businesses, the astronauts into explore the sky, & the politicians run for office, the risk of its inevitable partner. But their actions show that there is concern today is no risk: Risk management is synonymous with challenge & opportunity.
Bernstein presents fascinating vignettes of such towering intellect as Omar Khayyam, Pascal, & Bernoulli, Bayes & Keynes, Markowitz & arrow, & Gauss, Galton & von Neumann. With his engaging literary style, he explains the concepts of probability, sampling, regression into the mean, game theory & rational vs irrational decision-making. The final issues of the book throw important questions about the role of the computer, the relationship between facts & subjective beliefs, the impact of chaos theory, the role of new markets for derivatives, & the new dominance of the numbers.
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk is a rare book that makes the deepest questions of our time in pure reading pleasure. With the stock market breaking records nearly daily, so many years of market analysts shaking their heads & revising their forecasts, a study on the concept of risk seems quite timely. Peter Bernstein has an extensive history of human efforts into risk & probability, understandably written, starting with the early players in ancient Greece, continuing through the 17th Century French mathematicians Pascal & Fermat & up into modern chaos theory. Along the way he demonstrates that understanding risk everything game theory is a bridge into produce wine based.
Against the Gods is an excellent book on the evolution of the risk and the attempt of man to understand. Bernstein begins with ancient times and traces the history of numbers and probability leading eventually to today’s seemingly complex world of financial products, portfolio theory, derivatives and risk management techniques. The reader will learn about revolutionary thinkers such as John von Neumann (inventor of game theory), Isaac Newton, Harry Markowitz (grandfather of portfolio theory), and the late Fischer Black (Black-Scholes option) among others. Readers will also find enlightening stories about game theory, Fibonacci numbers, chaos theory, the bell curve, regression to the mean, and more. But despite all the intelligence, computing power and sophisticated techniques, Bernstein us the growing number of researchers, evidence is including the late Amos Tversky and others discovered that “reveals repeated patterns of irrationality, inconsistency and incompetence in the way people arrive. In decisions and choices if they voted with insecurity, “Against the Gods was one of the top 10 Business Week Books of 1996.
Rating: 5.5
Bernstein has written a thorough book that traces the linear progression of man to understand the probability and risk.
This is a journey that begins with the importatioin the Arabic numeral system in the West and ends with a super-computer crunched chaos theory. In between lie the fathers (all men) of mathamatical understanding. These individuals are the history of Against the Gods. Bernstein survey of the intellectual as a man striving each contrubutions then, understood basic probability, the law of large numbers, bell curves, regression analysis, uncertainty theory and what else do you remember dark, from the university statistics classes. He spends the last quarter of the book on risk and probability theory in the financial world, where theorists portfolio analysis have developed volitility studies, hedging and Sidebet and other quantatative market plays.
Credit to the author for balancing his history against the very high probability that much of what these thinkers sought may be unattainable. He often recalled the man, explaining that these people are trying to laws formulated from observations in the natural world. Although law has impressed with his intellectual frontiersmen Bernstein no problem recognizing the uncertainty that has always told us has escaped, and that it helps make life worth living and progress possible.
This book is for what it is interesting. A history of the development of theories. I would be more of a focus on the applications of this intellectual development, which have enjoyed led to the development of insurance and financial markets. Although these elements are often called, they form the backdrop for Bernstein’s survey of the theory. I suspect another book awaits someone who has the order and use theory as a backdrop for the mechanisms that unfold to allow the modern economy and to develop will be reversed. The history of insurance, speculation, the beginning of capital markets, business and the wealthy like spring from the intellectual movements so well chronicled by Bernstein. However, they are not the focus, which the habit of reading the sometimes dry and uninteresting, not from the actual numerical analysis and plenty of evidence that are in the course of the book has enchanted offerred.
If you like intellectual history and are looking to bind together the building blocks of probability and risk analysis in the last four centuries, when this book is absolutely captivating. If you are looking for an understanding of how these discoveries were applied to forge the modern economy we now take for granted you can find interesting parts but also the feeling that the story is incomplete.
Rating: 5.3
The book is a rather interesting history of the mathematical analysis of risk. Bernstein describes the development of probability theory and statistical analysis and even some of the modern portfolio theory underlying concepts. However, I was overall disappointed. The cover and title misled me — I was a story of hope, as the understanding of risk and the development of analytical tools for the development of insurance markets, etc. held and fundamentally changed how businesses operated in view of the uncertainty. If a shipper could insure his cargo, instead of just waiting for bad news, how did this change the world? I want to know! Instead, I got to think about who discovered the bell curve read. I am trained in a mathematical field, so I felt the discussion was a bit boring.
I felt overall that the discussion was more to explain the math in layman’s terms as the study of the impact of these developments, as do the people and businesses to make decisions.
Rating: 5.3
The book was interesting in several respects. The central idea of the author, that a mature concept of risk management is a prerequisite for modern civilization, is intriguing but not fully supported by his book. After his studies in Finance Business School, it was interesting for me to learn a little of the history behind contemporary thinking on financial risk management (in other words, he explains, the discovered and popularized the alpha / beta thing).
Towards the end of the book, he began to touch only on some of the non-rational aspects of behavior in people, and I wish he would have gone deeper. Some of the most interesting work in economics is done today with the radical assumption that human behavior is driven more by emotion than by reason. Why do people make ill-considered decisions about risk? Not really answered in this book.
The book is almost completely oriented financial risk, and do not really look to other forms of risk management. Although the writing style is the inclusion – this is not dry – there are some structural problems. The author wanders around a little, and sometimes takes ideas and personalities, without ever explaining why.
It is important to note that this is treated as a “story” of the historian-view, and not as a textbook. In this way, it is true to its title. The book cover makes no claims for it as an intellectual or academic treatment of the topic, which makes a very accessible book. It is not deep, and it is only slightly informative, but outside of the little annoyances outline some weaknesses, I enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 5.3
Peter Bernstein’s Against the Gods is a highly informative and entertaining, tells the story of risk. Through the course of the book, he explains the basic concepts of risk management in an informal, yet highly effective manner. He delves into the human aspect quite a bit, we are dedicated to the trials and tribulations of this brilliant man who first pioneered the ideas behind chance and risk.
The primary purpose of Against the Gods is not one as an introduction to risk management. buy for those who will find in this book, how you be disappointed. Instead, this is a great primer on risks and their history, that the interest of any person who has had little formal background pique, in the science of risk management. The main strength of Against the Gods is its startling clarity that are not not at the expense of comprehensibility. Bernstein assumes no prior experience with mathematics or risk management. It is this accessibility that should the first book on the risk of making you buy.
summary, I recommend this to anyone who has at least a little interest in chance or risk. submitted for those with experience in risk management, the history of the risk in Against the Gods is still very interesting. However, do not expect the ideas to be new.
Rating: 5.5