Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

"Ambitious and readable . . . an engaging introduction to the oddsmakers, whom Bernstein regards as true humanists helping to release mankind from the choke holds of superstition and fatalism." —The New York Times

"An extraordinarily entertaining and informative book." —The Wall Street Journal

"A lively panoramic book . . . Against the Gods sets up an ambitious premise and then delivers on it." —Business Week

"Deserves to be, and surely will be, widely read." —The Economist

"[A] challenging book, one that may change forever the way people think about the world." —Worth

"No one else could have written a book of such central importance with so much charm and excitement." —Robert Heilbroner author, The Worldly Philosophers

"With his wonderful knowledge of the history and current manifestations of risk, Peter Bernstein brings us Against the Gods. Nothing like it will come out of the financial world this year or ever. I speak carefully: no one should miss it." —John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University

In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today.

"An extremely readable history of risk." —Barron's

"Fascinating . . . this challenging volume will help you understand the uncertainties that every investor must face." —Money

"A singular achievement." —Times Literary Supplement

"There's a growing market for savants who can render the recondite intelligibly—witness Stephen Jay Gould (natural history), Oliver Sacks (disease), Richard Dawkins (heredity), James Gleick (physics), Paul Krugman (economics)—and Bernstein would mingle well in their company." —The Australian

Amazon.com Review
With the stock market breaking records almost daily, leaving longtime market analysts shaking their heads and revising their forecasts, a study of the concept of risk seems quite timely. Peter Bernstein has written a comprehensive history of man's efforts to understand risk and probability, beginning with early gamblers in ancient Greece, continuing through the 17th-century French mathematicians Pascal and Fermat and up to modern chaos theory. Along the way he demonstrates that understanding risk underlies everything from game theory to bridge-building to winemaking.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Economy for those who have given up, 2009-09-03
Risk is a key issue in money affairs and this tome gets all round under over and inside this important issue.
Pity the bloke is dead we could do with more of his work.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

The rise of risk management, 2009-08-30
Huge enterprises and vast industries now depend on complex risk management techniques. Against the Gods explains the origins of those techniques. The text starts with Renaissance gamblers, moves through the Victorians with their fascination with measurement, and into our age of precision.

For the most part this is a history of the people who made those techniques, more than an examination of the techniques themselves. The actual math is superficially described in the early stages when things were still relatively simple. The later more complicated techniques are not described in any detail.

Bernstein also discusses the fascinating question of why these ideas were not discovered earlier. Many of our most modern risk management techniques require computers. However most of the things covered in this book do not. Why did were these ideas not discovered and used before the Renaissance? Against the Gods has answers.

Against the Gods is very well written, the author has an engaging style and explains the concepts clearly. The story of how we learned to manage risks is an interesting one.



2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Risk education, 2009-08-14
I found this book very enjoyable. The author writes about the origins, and, most importantly, the evolution of risk. It starts with ancient times and takes us to today's financial world. I really like how he explained the evolution of risk management from primitive ways to more complex and sophisticated methods. It also features certain individuals who contributed to the development of theories about risk and probabilities. I think that readers who are interested in learning more about risk will find this book valuable.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

math teachers delight, 2009-08-08
Great book for a math teacher who delights in the historical minutia that can enhance the teaching environment as well as a philosophical approach to why and how people make decisions.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Somewhat interesting read in the history of quantifying financial risk, 2009-06-14
The author has done extensive research and provided a historical account of the academic study of quantifying financial risk. It starts at the beginning of the Arabic numeral system all the way to the Black-Scholes options formula. The book is generally interesting from the historical perspective. Yet it suffers from a few flaws: (a) the grandiose claim that modernity depends on this quantification is grossly exaggerated and not justified in the text(seems like a common suffering of tunnel vision shaped by the narrowness of your own field), (b) certain account of the theory is not quite right, although the general gist is correct, (c) narrowly focused on financial risk, (d) generally missing the issues about non quantifiable risk, feedback mechanisms in the markets, and the variety of cognitive failures not captured by a nice Gaussian distribution, (e) only celebrates successes of the theories while ignoring its often monumental failures. That said, if you take it for what it is (i.e., ignoring the Grandiose Title of "Against the Gods" and know it is a narrowly focused discussion of a branch of math/finance theories), then it is probably worth a read. I would recommend continuing with Taleb's Black Swan to see a completely different perspective after you finish with this one.

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