Prisoner's Dilemma

Poundstone's three dimensional outline of game theory mathematics sketches the life of its inventor, John von Neumann, and his role in cold war policy making. There are also interesting descriptions of Neumann's childhood in the anti semitic environment of pre-WWII Hungary and his early conversion to Catholicism. It is to Neumann that we owe much of the terminology (MAD, first strike) that framed the discourse of the Cold War. This book is both frightening and essential for scholars of the Cold War, and a testament to a wayward and arrogant, mathematical genius.