Most of it seems to come from a subdiscipline called Decision Theory (often viewed as being as much a part of psychology or business as it is mathematics), but his presentation is entirely mathematical. For example, he covers the kinds of mistakes people often make when deciding where to shop, what to bet on, how to manage a business and (that most common of daily activities) where to dig for a buried body when you are only allowed to dig one hole and the crazy boy who knows where it is buried is only allowed to tell you where it is not buried.

Seriously, though, I do recommend this book to people as a really good guide to thinking mathematically about many things we do encounter on a daily basis, especially when our "gut reaction" is something that seems right but upon further investigation turns out to be precisely the wrong thing to do.

But, there is one thing about this book that bugged me to the point that I almost could not read it. Perhaps it is just me (since the author seems to be at least somewhat aware of it and apparently unbothered by it), but I could not take all of the anachronisms. I mean, this book is supposed to take place in England in 1900. As the author acknowledges in the appendix, it is then technically incorrect to have Charles Dodgson appear and get the idea for writing the "Alice" stories, when they were already written (and Dodgson already dead) in that year. Similarly, there is no year in which Marx and Lenin could meet as adults. But, it is not just these intentional (and perhaps forgivable) anachronisms that bother me. It is the fact that every topic of discussion seems more relevant to the late 20th century than the turn or the century. Were there really laws against using pesticide because of run-off and people concerned about the evolution of moths induced by factory smoke in 1900? Were people talking about the health risks of cigarettes and crop circles? Could even the most forward thinking of engineers in 1900 have predicted that the most serious threat to an engine on an airplane would be a collision with a bird?

I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, since his earlier successful book also presented 20th century ideas in an essentially 19th century context, but all of this just makes it hard for me to "get into" the story. Okay, as I said, maybe it's just me. And besides, even I did feel that I learned something from reading the book!

Note: This book was reviewed in the November 2002 issue of the AMS Notices.