Product Description: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, July 2-13, 1979

Product Description: In 1921, when he was 11 years old, Anatol Rapoport attempted to ice skate out of Russia to freedom in Poland. Caught by border guards and turned back, he decided to try again with the help of professional Army smugglers. This bittersweet story of emigration, by the famed psychologist and mathematician known for his work in game theory, is set against the background of the Russian revolution and civil war...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: The autobiography of Anatol Rapoport--concert pianist, lecturer, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, psychologist, journallist, author, humanitarian. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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In this fundamental analysis, Rapoport asks: Why do we have wars? Doesn't humanity always seem on the verge of self-annihilation? Is there something in human genetic structure that makes people want to kill each other? Perhaps this impulse is a matter of good versus evil, or just plain human nature. Rapoport moves beyond clichés by claiming that the sources of modern violence reside in the imbalance between a lag in the system of values inherited from the past and the structure of science and technology that awaits no revision of values to move ahead. As a result, Rapoport argues that the study of war and peace should be considered a science, just like biology or, for that matter, political science. The same rules of empirical engagement and experimentation should apply. Before we can have a theory of peace, we need a methodology of conflict. Using the writings of thinkers who have made significant contributions to the predominant ideas and ideals of our society, Rapoport weaves together the strands of independent thought and research into a single, thought-provoking work. After investigating the whys of violence, using ideological, psychological, strategic, and systemic perspective, Rapoport moves to an in-depth analysis of possible varieties of conflict resolution. He explores such mechanisms as mediation, education, and applying the results of scientific research. He documents the impact of ideologies countervailing dominant ones that place obstacles in the way of peacemaking. Rapoport argues that conciliation and game theories can be utilized to replace the concept of winner take all or total victory. The Origins of Violence is a needed contribution to our understanding of warfare, and provides a forward-looking perspective that can be of wide use to each of the policy sciences, starting with military strategy and ending with international development.

Product Description: Peace researcher Anatol Rapoport suggests that war will soon fall into disuse

Product Description: This book is the product of a collective effort by some members of the Group of 78. The name of the group derives from the number of its founding members. Its activities comprise studies of and analysis of public issues which seem at the time to be of crucial importance not only to Canadians but to all the inhabitants of the planet...read more

Product Description: This book presents the content of a year's course in decision processes for third and fourth year students given at the University of Toronto. A principal theme of the book is the relationship between normative and descriptive decision theory...read more

Analyzes the types of human conflict and suggests means of minimizing their destructive potentials

Product Description: Game theory could be formally defined as a theory of rational decision in conflict situations. Models of such situations, as they are conceived in game theory, involve (1) a set of decision makers, called players; (2) a set of strategies available to each player; (3) a set of outcomes, each of which is a result of particular choices of strategies made by the players on a given play of the game; and (4) a set of payoffs accorded to each player in each of the possible outcomes...read more

Product Description: The term "Prisoner's Dilemma" comes from the original anecdote used to illustrate this game of strategy. Two prisoners, held incommunicado, are charged with the same crime. They can be convicted only if either confesses. If both prisoners confess, their payoff is minus one...read more