VON NEUMANN AND MORGENSTERN. THEORY OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOUR, PRINCETON, 1944, CLOTH, DUST-JACKET

8vo (234 x 156mm.), original light brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt on red panel, corrigenda leaf loosely inserted, dust-jacket, neat restoration to jacket along spine and along top and lower edges, slight remains of tape adhesive to corrigenda leaf and front endpaper, minor browning to jacket

bought from Scientia, Arlington, MA, 1990

Tomash & Williams V43; Origins of Cyberspace 953

FIRST EDITION OF THE GROUND-BREAKING WORK OUTLINING A MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF GAMES AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, leading to the creation of modern game theory studying the ways in which strategic interactions among rational players produce outcomes with respect to the players' preferences, but not always with outcomes intended by any of them. Game theory subsequently revolutionised economics and scientific inquiry into a whole host of phenomena, and was most famously embraced by the American think tank the RAND Corporation, charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age. It led to the momentous discovery by RAND scientists in 1950 of the so-called "prisoner's dilemma", a mind-bending game in which two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. "The authors did not expect their book to be embraced or even understood by the economists, and the publisher expected such low sales that he insisted on a subsidy..." (William Aspray, John von Neumann and the origins of modern computing, quoted by Tomash & Williams, p.1329). In the event the work attracted considerable publicity from an early stage, featuring on the front page of The New York Times in March 1946. By academic standards the book became a best-seller.