具体描述
At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded — and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.
Ingeniously employing game theory — the logic of "zero-sum" and "non-zero-sum" games — Wright isolates the impetus behind life's basic direction: the impetus that, via biological evolution, created complex, intelligent animals and then, via cultural evolution, pushed the human species toward deeper and vaster social complexity. In this view, the coming of today's interdependent global society was "in the cards" — not quite inevitable, perhaps, but, as Wright puts it, "so probable as to inspire wonder." So probable, indeed, as to invite speculation about higher purpose, especially in light of "the phase of history that seems to lie immediately ahead: a social, political, and even moral culmination of sorts."
In a work of vast erudition and pungent wit, Wright takes on some of the past century's most prominent thinkers, including Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins. He finds evidence for his position in unexpected corners, from native American hunter-gatherer societies and Polynesian chiefdoms to medieval Islamic commerce and precocious Chinese technology; from conflicts of interest among a cell's genes to discord at the World Trade Organization.
Wright argues that a coolly scientific appraisal of humanity's three-billion-year past can give new spiritual meaning to the present and even offer political guidance for the future. Nonzero will change the way people think about the human prospect.
作者简介
Robert Wright is the author of Three Scientists and Their Gods and The Moral Animal, which was named by the New York Times Book Review as one of the twelve best books of the year and has been published in nine languages. A recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism, Wright has published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Time, and Slate. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and The Sciences and now runs the Web site nonzero.org. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.
目录信息
读后感
说老外思维简单，往往是一个词汇有多重含义和解释；说中国人聪明，往往同一个意思可以用不同的单词来表达，而把人认为天经地义的道理搞糊涂。 英语中有一个单词目前在中国绝大多数稍微读过几天英文的人都非常熟悉。这就是——Share，其中最为中国证券界人士熟悉的解释就是“股...
评分这本书相比大部分书还是【言之有物】的，其它书籍通常是老调重弹、言之无物，本书能做到内容新颖，观点有创意，主要内容是【用博弈论对若干历史事件产生的价值进行梳理和分析，新的角度带来新的理解】，这点就是书值得称道的地方。 但是这本书东拉西扯的地方太多，里面的历史没...
评分看到本书的谜一样的东方的章节，原来中国没有产生现代文明和自然选择有关，挺合理的解释，很厉害的分析，于是本人就做个笔记(借用一些书中的语句)： 蒙古人占领中国，继承已经成型的帝国，并将疆土扩充到东欧，确保商路安全，使得亚欧各国互通有无，联系紧密。而明朝统...
评分逻辑牵强，引用过多，缺乏第一手信息，翻译尤其差，不知所云；居然把知识产权，intellecture property翻译成智慧财产。 平均每章出现名人名言3-5段，如果每次都要脱帽致敬的话，基本上就别想戴帽子了。作者是不是靠旁征博引上位的？
评分逻辑牵强，引用过多，缺乏第一手信息，翻译尤其差，不知所云；居然把知识产权，intellecture property翻译成智慧财产。 平均每章出现名人名言3-5段，如果每次都要脱帽致敬的话，基本上就别想戴帽子了。作者是不是靠旁征博引上位的？
用户评价
合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。
评分合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。
评分合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。
评分合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。
评分合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。
