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Review
“…an excellent book on what can be a dry subject…” (Financial World, 1st December 2005)
"A comprehensive history of man′s efforts to understand risk and probability, from ancient gamblers in Greece to modern chaos theory." (The Washington Post Book World, September 20, 1998)
"I must say that I enjoyed the book, it was written in a light–hearted manner". (Money Matters, April 2001)
No. 7 bestseller in ′Risk′ (erivativesreview.com, December 2001)
"...provides an excellent history about risk and it′s vital role in markets." (Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2006)
“…an excellent book on what can be a dry subject…” (Financial World, 1st December 2005)
"I must say that I enjoyed the book, it was written in a light–hearted manner".(Money Matters, April 2001)
No. 7 bestseller in ′Risk′ (erivativesreview.com, December 2001)
The Washington Post Book World, September 20, 1998
Why is the mastery of risk such a uniquely modern concept? Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spins a good yarn,
By A Customer
This review is from: Against the Gods: Remarkable Story of Risk (Hardcover)
This is full of highly entertaining anecdotes, pithy quotations and useful snippets of knowledge which add up to a cogent argument only by making some outrageously sweeping assumptions.It is difficult to argue with the excellent summary of risk management during the course of this century, and anyone looking for a thought-provoking introduction to Markowitz and all that need look no further. However, to get there you need to get past a broad swipe at the History of Ideas which attempts to show you how clever we are compared to the ancients. The author's basic premise is that in The Olden Days when we were unable to accurately measure risk, people cheerfully put their faith in the lap of the gods, blindly setting to sea during storms, building their houses next to flood-prone rivers, all the while serenely unaware of how the odds stacked up against them. Then, as we became increasingly aware of the beauty of zeroes, Arabic numerals and standard deviation, we were increasingly able to measure what was going on and therefore control it. Well, that assumes that you cannot control risk without first being able to accurately measure it. I just don't believe that the Greeks never spotted that their unevenly-shaped dice fell more often on one side than the other - kids in playgrounds spot that kind of thing easily. I also rubbed my eyes in disbelief at the idea that the period of Columbus was the first time in history that wealth was created by mutually beneficial trade, rather than by conquest and pillage - is this a commonly held belief? And while we're being pedantic, Pascal's Pensées are not his "autobiography", nor is it safe to make assumptions that the fragments in them are all expressions of his own beliefs. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read that is satisfyingly thought-provoking.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything is a risk,
This review is from: Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (Paperback)
Are you a private investor looking for handy tips on hot stocks? Good luck, but this might not be for you. You won't find get-rick-quick advice in this scholarly work, but you might learn why you're drawn to actively managed funds despite their history of market underperformance. You'll also be enriched by the stories and depth of research here. Another reviewer objects that Bernstein credits the Greek mathematicians with less understanding of probability than a school child. It seemed to me that Bernstein is saying something different: Even if Socrates had a private opinion about the frequency of VI on an astragali roll it wasn't a respectable part of his intellectual framework. He might of known it, but he refused to study it. The author clearly considers his subject the most important in history, and in 330 pages identifies every significant step in the development of *thinking about* risk. In some ways though, the focus is too narrow. It becomes clear towards the end of the book that he has been building up the strands of probability theory as precursors to the 'taming of risk' in modern financial theory. I was hoping that an ambitious work on the history of probability would include the discovery that all of reality is based on chance, but you can search the index for 'Quantum Mechanics' in vain. (However 'Quant' is there - Bernstein himself was once a financial mathematician.) In a subject as huge as risk there will always be more to say, and what is included here makes a cohesive whole whilst being important or interesting in it parts. Ok, maybe you don't love chance as much as me - what you need to know about portfolio theory is in Chapter 12 onwards - you'll still have 140 pages of important results. It's even topical, Kahneman's Prospect Theory is covered in detail (and he won the Nobel last year).
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A readable analysis of risk,
By A Customer
This review is from: Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (Paperback)
There are few who could imagine being captivated by an examination of mathematical probability but I found this book held my attention all the way through. The author has an expansive knowledge of the subject and handles the material in a way that is both readable and enlightening
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