From the Greek's dice - today..........fantastic !!!

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	• Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk Peter L. Bernstein Wiley, 1998 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 155 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A good read

Bernstein writes with the depth of knowledge of a university professor, and the style of popular fiction writer. He captures both the scientific and human aspects of this broad subject.

Classic - will still be in print 50 years from now

Crisp reading, articulate, gives an exacting history of math and the pursuit of managing risk through the use of math since the beginning of time.

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From the Greek's dice - today..........fantastic !!!

Against the Gods is a fantastic book for people who love to read the history of risk, dating back as far as to the greeks. Bernstein's passion to the topic makes it a clear 5 star book. And he's passions shows on almost every page. Example: if you are just interested in the Markowitz formula, don't buy this book. But if you wanna read that Markowitz's methodology is a synthesis of the ideas of Pascal, de Moivre, Bayes, Laplace, Guass, Galton, Daniel Bernoulli (especially since he's had the same nationality than me) and von Neumann & Morgenstern. Furthermore, that Markowitz's methodolgy draws on probability theory, on sampling, on the bell curve and dispersion around the mean, on regression to the mean, and on utility theory. If this history is what interests you, this book is for you (if not only for the great title & book cover) !

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Review of "Against The Gods"

This is an excellent book on the history and development of the concepts surrounding and the measurements of risk.

For the first time, a book on this subject was prepared that stands as a guide to help the individual in his professional career and investing activities and serves as a legitimate academic work worthy for incusion in capital markets study.

Professor John W. Kercheval, III
Georgetown University
Washington, DC

One of my favorite books

Must confess my bias on this. I like games, gambling and investing. This book covers the gamut and does it well. What I found especially enjoyable was Bernstein's literate background. He spun a fascinating tale of 'The remarkable story of risk' (from the front cover) in a totally engaging way.

Following comes from the introduction, "The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature."

Clearly, this book covers important ground. Fortunately for us, it does so in a way that leaves no one behind.

As a student of business I found this to be totally absorbing.

Because I like to gamble, it was wonderful to learn that questions posed by gamblers in the Renaissance resulted in the groundwork in our modern understanding of risk management.

Because Bernstein writes this as a history the reader can enjoy it as such without struggling through a textbook-like treatment of this material.

I have read and enjoyed it several times.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

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