This audiobook, a narrative that moves like a novel, chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from the oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today. The premise is to show that risk need not be feared today: managing risks has become synonymous with challenge and opportunity.
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.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
probability good; Wall St. ridiculous:
I read this when it came out and thought it was pretty good. The first half, about how people figured out how probability worked, was really entertaining. The end, about how the geniuses on Wall St. conquered risk, is so wrong it's hilarious. Bernstein is a victim of what Taleb calls the ludic fallacy -- mistaking well-defined games like craps for the truly unpredictable. So go read "The Black Swan" or "Fooled by Randomness" instead.
Great Reward:
My friends and colleagues have a hard time believing that one of the most entertaining books I have ever read is about risk management and probability. Yet, Peter Bernstein's masterpiece bestseller is just that. By tracing the development of risk through the ages, he sets the personalities of the key innovators against the background of the times, and shows the practicality of what they did and how it changed the way we look at the world. Most of my favorite mathematicians are profiled here, in witty... more info
Excellent overview of the history of financial risk management:
Against The Gods is a popular account of the history of financial risk management. The author takes us through a journey of discovery spanning almost a thousand years, from the introduction of Arabic numerals and the concept of zero, to the most sophisticated derivative instruments of modern finance. At each point in history when a great leap forward was made, the personalities involved are introduced, and the advances they are credited with are explained. All throughout, mankind's age-old struggle to... more info
Today's hero is often tomorrow's blockhead.:
There are two things that I really liked about this book, and one thing that I didn't. The good things: 1) The author's vast knowledge of the financial markets, from most of a century of experience.
2) His extensive and entertaining history of risk analysis. The bad thing: His attempts to explain math concepts that he apparently doesn't understand very well. His history of risk analysis was a pleasure to read -- from Fibonacci and Cardano, to Markowitz and Sharpe. My favorite, was... more info
