I wasn't sure what this book was about going in, as the ARC blurb wasn't enough to really explain how the promised topic would be covered. In fact, it wasn't clear what the topic really was, other than a history of modern games and a tie-in to game theory in the bigger picture. I took a chance since it sounded like something different from my last couple reads. I'm glad I read it, but even as I read I wasn't sure what the book was about. I'm not so sure the book itself knows what it's about - maybe it does by the end.

The blurb starts by promising "A wide-ranging intellectual history that reveals how important games have been to human progress, and what’s at stake when we forget what games we’re really playing." Hmm. The blurb also proclaims, "*Playing with Reality* explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, political science, evolutionary biology, the development of computers and AI, cutting-edge neuroscience, and cognitive psychology." Well, yes and no. In hindsight, I can see why they wrote that, but, as I read, the "unexpected path" that was woven was indeed a "weaving one". To be honest, the book reads like a collection of essays on topics related to a few key games, then game theory, then the insight of how evolution, learning, and training AI's requires game-like concepts to advance. That's the most interesting part of the book, to me. I found the history spotty, the game theory heavy-handed, but the last third of the book delivered the goods.

Reading back, that sounds more negative than I intended. I enjoyed the topic, though I found the long section on game theory a bit "woke" in places, and sometimes contradictory, If I consider the opening 2/3 preamble for the last 1/3, it all comes together. Bottom line: it did "weave an unexpected path" to get to the payoff. I guess the blurb writer earned his pay.