A famed political scientist's classic argument for a more cooperative world We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate? In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1980, he organized the famed Computer Prisoners Dilemma Tournament, which sought to find the optimal strategy for survival in a particular game. Over and over, the simplest strategy, a cooperative program called Tit for Tat, shut out the competition. In other words, cooperation, not unfettered competition, turns out to be our best chance for survival. A vital book for leaders and decision makers, The Evolution of Cooperation reveals how cooperative principles help us think better about everything from military strategy, to political elections, to family dynamics.

In spite of its numerous obvious failures, many presidential candidates and voters are in favor of a socialist system for the United States. Socialism is consistent with our primitive evolved preferences, but not with a modern complex economy. One reason for the desire for socialism is the misinterpretation of capitalism. The standard definition of free market capitalism is that it’s a system based on unbridled competition. But this oversimplification is incredibly misleading—capitalism exists because human beings have organically developed an elaborate system based on trust and collaboration that allows consumers, producers, distributors, financiers, and the rest of the players in the capitalist system to thrive. Paul Rubin, the world’s leading expert on cooperative capitalism, explains simply and powerfully how we should think about markets, economics, and business—making this book an indispensable tool for understanding and communicating the vast benefits the free market bestows upon societies and individuals.

The question of why the cooperation of Jews with the Persian and Ptolemaic empires achieved some success and why it failed with regard to the Seleucids and the Romans, even turning into military hostility against them, has not been sufficiently answered. The present volume intends to show, from the perspectives of Hebrew Bible, Judaic, and Ancient History Studies, that the contrasting Jewish attitudes towards foreign powers were not only dependent on specific political circumstances. They were also interrelated with the emergence of multiple early Jewish identities, which all found a basis in the Torah, the prophets, or the psalms.

How can the world's most powerful nations cooperate despite their conflicting interests? In Three-Way Street, Joshua S. Goldstein and John R. Freeman analyze the complex intersection defined by relations among the United States, the Soviet Union, and China over the past forty years. The authors demonstrate that three major schools of international relations theory--all game-theoretic, psychological, and quantitative-empirical approaches--have all advocated a strategy that employs cooperative initiatives and reciprocal responses in order to elicit cooperation from other countries. Critics have questioned whether such approaches can model how countries actually behave, but Goldstein and Freeman provide a wealth of detailed empirical evidence showing the existence and effectiveness of strategic reciprocity among the three countries between 1948 and 1989. Specifically, they establish that relations among the three countries have improved in recent decades through a "two steps forward, one step back" pattern. Their innovative and remarkably accessible synthesis of leading theoretical perspectives brilliantly illuminates the nature and workings of international cooperation.

Though a US-China conflict is far from inevitable, major tensions are building in the Asia-Pacific region. These strains are the result of historical enmity, cultural divergence, and deep ideological estrangement, not to mention apprehensions fueled by geopolitical competition and the closely related “security dilemma.” Despite worrying signs of intensifying rivalry, few observers have provided concrete paradigms to lead this troubled relationship away from disaster. This book is dramatically different in that Lyle J. Goldstein’s focus is on laying bare both US and Chinese perceptions of where their interests clash and proposing new paths to ease bilateral tensions through compromise. Each chapter contains a “cooperation spiral” —the opposite of an escalation spiral—to illustrate these policy proposals. Goldstein makes one hundred policy proposals over the course of this book to inaugurate a genuine debate regarding cooperative policy solutions to the most vexing problems in US-China relations. Goldstein not only parses findings from American scholarship but also breaks new ground by analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language sources, including military publications, never before evaluated by Western experts. Meeting China Halfway, new in paperback, remains a refreshing and unique contribution to the study of the world’s most important bilateral relationship.

This work details relations between Jews and Visigoths, polemic and persecution, and between Jews and Muslims, cooperation and conflict, in medieval Spain, including later Christian Spain. New sources and new insights challenge conventional interpretations.

Examines how the belief in gods has lead to cooperation and sometimes conflict between groups. The author also looks at how some cooperative societies have developed without belief in gods.

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