This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based.
What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a
mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed,
in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and
Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern
conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social
organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would
this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific
inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a
host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices
of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league
baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout
both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
This sixtieth anniversary edition includes not only the original text
but also an introduction by Harold Kuhn, an afterword by Ariel
Rubinstein, and reviews and articles on the book that appeared at the
time of its original publication in the New York Times, tthe American
Economic Review, and a variety of other publications. Together, these
writings provide readers a matchless opportunity to more fully
appreciate a work whose influence will yet resound for generations to
come.