But by the thirteenth century, new mental tools were in place the Hindu-Arabic numbering system, algebra, accounting, and other necessary equipment for the first insights into the laws of chance. Thus in the worldview of ancient Greece, a man's destiny swayed with the whim of the gods, logic prevailed over experimentation, and the use of letters for numbers inhibited man's ability to calculate.

Gods begins with a sweeping proposition Modern thinking began when man abandoned the belief that events are due to the whim of the gods and embraced the notion that we are active, independent agents who can manage risks. It searches out the roots of modern finance and provides an interpretation of the history of that 'science.' Throughout, Bernstein's subtext is an investigation of the meaning of rationality and of the limits of rationality in explaining our choices. Together with his highly successful predecessor, Capital Ideas The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street (The Free Press, New York, 1992), Bernstein has laid out a remarkably insightful and entertaining history of the 'science' of finance, including fascinating descriptions of the people who drove the development of modern financial economics.īernstein's earlier work, Ideas, emphasized the advances emerging from the notion that investors are rational and security markets are efficient It focused on modern portfolio theory and its implications for security prices, and on the development of new instruments, like equity options. Peter Bernstein's latest book, Against the Gods The Remarkable Story of Risk, establishes his standing as America's preeminent scholar-practitioner in the field of finance.

Against the gods peter bernstein