Games Prisoners Play : The Tragicomic Worlds of Polish Prison

Rating:
Summary: Games Prisoners Play : The Tragicomic Worlds of Polish Priso
Review: I know very little about game theory but this hasn't prevented me from swallowing ?Games Prisoners Play? in one gulp. Having been taken by the attractive title and the author?s biography I didn?t experience a single moment of disappointment at any stage of the reading. Accustomed to story-telling and fiction I was astonished how interesting a structured, well-organized scientific analysis of prison life can be versus subjective visions depicted in all kinds of personal accounts (either in books or movies) I?ve read or seen so far.
Following the author's (former prisoner himself) path through fascinating subculture of Polish prison you don't see freaks and outlaws but reasonable people. Even if inmates' behaviors may often seem freaky and completely incomprehensible the author introduces you to the rationale behind their (his) actions in a perfectly convincing mode, to the extent that you start imagining yourself making a seemingly freakish decision in similar circumstances (what comes to one's mind is that all of us are potential prisoners).
What adds the flavor to the reading is an account of, among others, the prison argot (words and expressions explained in the book are later combined in an attached glossary) or everyday life including such ?trivial? areas as handling physiology in a small cell shared by a few people or sexual life.
Having read the book I also feel greatly encouraged to learn more about game theory. Thus, I may assume that not only is the book a perfect introduction to prison life but also to game theory.


Rating:
Summary: Not just "another applied game theory book"
Review: Kaminski is this amazing guy who ran a famous underground publishing house in Poland /but even dissidents in Czechia, Moravia and Hungary will proudly display books which came out of his firm /, spent five months in prison for doing it, but 17 years down the line ends up at the Institute of Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at UCI. Where he finally decides to put together the skills with the experiences and writes 'Games Prisoners Play,' not your typical applied game theory book. The reader is instantly immersed in the world of communist prison subculture and, perhaps surprisingly, finds it's not a world of unpredictable sadists, rapers and madmen. Even when they swallow metal, inject diseases into their blood and develop an incomprehensible form of communication - argot, they're just optimizing. Playing games of incomplete information and making rational decisions. Or at least their behavior can be interpreted as such. Don't get me wrong, they do have a spiritual life as well - they write poetry, carve chess figurines out of bread, paint their bodies in tattoos, brew tea between joking and story telling. But it's for their capacity constant analysis, updating beliefs and processing newly acquired information that by the end of the book you believe Kaminski saying that when he was dismissed he nearly regretted leaving because he felt his research was not yet complete. Now, that's what I call academic commitment!

Rating:
Summary: Not just "another applied game theory book"
Review: Kaminski is this amazing guy who ran a famous underground publishing house in Poland /but even dissidents in Czechia, Moravia and Hungary will proudly display books which came out of his firm /, spent five months in prison for doing it, but 17 years down the line ends up at the Institute of Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at UCI. Where he finally decides to put together the skills with the experiences and writes 'Games Prisoners Play,' not your typical applied game theory book. The reader is instantly immersed in the world of communist prison subculture and, perhaps surprisingly, finds it's not a world of unpredictable sadists, rapers and madmen. Even when they swallow metal, inject diseases into their blood and develop an incomprehensible form of communication - argot, they're just optimizing. Playing games of incomplete information and making rational decisions. Or at least their behavior can be interpreted as such. Don't get me wrong, they do have a spiritual life as well - they write poetry, carve chess figurines out of bread, paint their bodies in tattoos, brew tea between joking and story telling. But it's for their capacity constant analysis, updating beliefs and processing newly acquired information that by the end of the book you believe Kaminski saying that when he was dismissed he nearly regretted leaving because he felt his research was not yet complete. Now, that's what I call academic commitment!