Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Published by Wiley, 1998, softcover, 383 pages, condition: as new.

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.

Thoroughly enjoyed this. It examines the study and the notion of risk throughout...well throughout forever. A lot of the reviews make this out to be chock full of math, but speaking as a very non-math person I found it perfectly accessible.
The author has a nice way of mixing background color and the personalities of the various people he discusses in with the overall examination of risk. I enjoyed thinking along with notions like why the number zero didn't exist until society had moved forward to a certain point; or why almost every work of ancient Greek storytelling has some mention of dice games in it but at no point did anyone in ancient Greece ever seem to stop and calculate the odds of these games.
Interesting stuff told with patient pleasantness.