This is also a biography of the idea that people are not as rational as they think they are; moreover, their mistakes aren’t random, they are predictable and just like optical illusions even after you know you’ve been fooled you still see them. But reading about academics who challenge conventional wisdom in the field of psychology is ... less interesting than financial traders who short the mortgage market, or adopt. I felt as if I was reading a textbook for a class I had to take, but had no interest in. Review of The Undoing Project When I was in graduate school I read a lot of what was then new research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky . I've read quite a lot about Kahneman and Tversky, but this book is surprising me, it's much more biographical and anecdotal. We’d love your help. This was informative and quirky--these guys kind of propounded all of these very provocative and innovative theories on their own!--but also very poignant and sad. There is a brief mention of a few expert … Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2018, “The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small” - Amos Tversky, Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018. I loved learning about two very smart men. Though very different in personality, they became very close friends and went on to collaborate in producing a number of papers concerning what came to be known as behavioural economics – or in layman’s terms, the psychology of judgement and decision making. This is a great story about two genius psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Many of the reviews were good, so I persevered. A great story, well told. Michael Lewis writes well but I believe he has fallen short here. Can someone help me sort out this analysis, in light of this book? 4.5 stars. Depends. A friendship that revolutionized psychology, Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2017. In this match, surprises are expected.”, “When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice, Amos”, Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2017). The story of Daniel Kahneman and his erstwhile companion Amos Tversky, and their creation of the field of behavioral economics. This is a biography of two Israeli psychologists who had such an impact on economics that one of them – Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize. It reminded us all we’re all humans and we must work to overcome envy and jealousy 4. This book is a well-told story, but that’s both its strength and its weakness. The Undoing Project › Customer reviews; Customer reviews. Lewis did something else he’d not done before as well. by W. W. Norton Company, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. Though very different in personality, they became very close friends and went on to collaborate in producing a number of papers concerning what came to be known as behavioural economics – or in layman’s terms, the psychology of judgement and decision making. Write a review. His talent lies in the ability to find people---the outliers, the rebels, the freaks---who have a unique perspective and new ways at looking at old problems. Lately I kept seeing reviews of Lewis' new book The Undoing Project appear on my Goodreads feed. He has attempted the same here about Tversky and Kahneman. In “ Moneyball ,” he tracked the astonishing success of Billy Beane, the general manager who turned the Oakland A’s from underdogs into … More foot/endnotes and perhaps a fuller bibliography would be helpful, too. Lewis is best at setting up an underdog who beats the system (in sports, the financial markets, etc.). Lewis was a teacher of one of Tversky’s sons! Being a baseball lover, one of my favorite books is Michael Lewis' Moneyball where he follows the low budget 2002 Oakland A's during their remarkable, division winning season. A better subtitle: "The End of the Affair". The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds is a 2016 nonfiction book by American author Michael Lewis, published by W.W. Norton. “Brilliant. Some of the highlights for me: 1. A close second and third and fourth would be the works by Nassim Taleb: Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan (also, Antifragile). The only thing I can add to this is that I am now genuinely excited to read Daniel Kahneman's THINKING FAST AND SLOW, a book that it feels like a hundred people have tried to sell me on over the years and that I had, up until this moment, resisted. We must support the popularization of scholarly topics, and I’ve read that it takes, on average, at least 20 years for new ideas, analyses, and discoveries to move out of the academic curriculum of higher education to what we teach our children in secondary school. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2020. But I think every serious thinker needs to get some exposure to the psychology of analytical mistakes. I found their documentation of the systematic ways in which people deviate from rational decision-making fascinating and I was searching for a way to apply that to political … When Psychology strapped on its parachute and dropped into the Kingdom of Economists, most of the natives rushed off to defend Rational Man from the attack of Emotionalists. Michael Lewis writes well but I believe he has fallen short here. Lewis is best at setting up an underdog who beats the system (in sports, the financial markets, etc.). Access a free review of The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis and 20,000 other business, leadership and nonfiction books on getAbstract. Refresh and try again. 1,512 customer ratings. Lewis has given us a spectacular account of two great men who faced up to uncertainty and the limits of human reason.” —William Easterly, Wall Street Journal , The Undoing Project, A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, Michael Lewis, 9780393354775 In this he tries the trick of explaining confusion by demonstrating confusion, but near the end of this work we appreciate again Lewis’ distinctive clarity and well-developed sense of irony as he addresses a very consequential collaboration in the history of ideas. Nick de Vera Depends. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. I enjoy a book or article that uses statistics and/or facts to cause me to ponder things from a different perspective. When they considered emotions, the Economists found Rational Man more human, more likely to behave as people actually behaved. I read “The Undoing Project” during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath. I would have been less annoyed with the single reference to the importance of Gestalt theory here without Kurt Lewin, “utility theory” without Bentham’s utilitarianism, etc. The challenge is to tell the story in a way that describes the behavioral biases without the need for technical discussion. Not so with The Undoing Project. Lewis writes about a ton of interesting things, but I want to see some kind of argument through-line, even if it’s to poke fun at an argument. They’ve simply asked questions that nobody ever thought to. To answer questions about The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, please sign up. Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror. First of all, I feel somewhat guilty about the rating. The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis, 3 stars, The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis - 4 stars, Malcolm Gladwell Examines the Real Danger of Talking to Strangers. I've read quite a lot about Kahneman and Tversky, but this book is surprising me, it's much more biographical and anecdotal. This nonfiction is unlike others Michael Lewis has offered us. Probabilities, utilities and even regret mattered less than did potential change from the status quo to these actors. I won't spoil it, but Amos really disappointed me with his calcifications toward the end. One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach, Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics. I'm sure some very good Youtube videos introduce these ideas as well. In the Introduction, Lewis explains that The Undoing Project exists largely as a complement to Moneyball, his 2003 book about how the Oakland Athletics front office shifted how many view performance analysis in professional … Please explain the meaning of the title "The Undoing Project". If I read 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' and 'Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics' does this one worth a read? In this he tries the trick of explaining confusion by demonstrating confusion, but near the end of this work we appreciate again Lewis’ distinctive clarity and well-developed sense of irony as he addresses a very consequential collaboration in the history of ideas. 4.5 star. It's still my favorite book on analytical folly and some of its remedies. It was tedious reading. Michael Lewis is a great story-teller and his latest book ‘The Undoing Project’ is as good as the previous ones. The only thing I can add to this is that I am now genuinely excited to read Daniel Kahneman's THINKING FAST AND SLOW, a book that it feels like a hundred people have tried to sell me on over the years and that I had, up until this moment, resisted. Michael Lewis narrates how it happened in this sup. What made this book special is that Lewis made baseball interesting for people who are not usual fans of the sport. In fact I don’t recall him talking about thinking fast (immediate response) or slow (long-term investor) at all. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It reminds us all that relationships can be difficult, but they can be easy if know how to work on them Overall, far mor… These concepts are available in a great number of mediums now, whether it is MBA courses, free Moocs, or elsewhere. It is a testament to Michael Lewis' writing that chunks of the psychological research featured in this book were beyond my comprehension, and yet I still enjoyed reading it. One of the delightful facts, also hidden in his endnotes, is the coincidence by which Lewis got to know Tversky’s family including access to his papers. According to the Moneyball author, it's all about framing. As a social-psychologist who loves psychology, sociology, and understanding humans, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Undoing Project”. My first exposure to these concepts was in the book "The Psychology of Intelligence" by Richard Heuer. It reads somewhere between biography and non-fiction about behavioral finance. I tend to get excited when the best story tellers write a new book, and when the book covers a topic I have been focused on recently this is even more so. Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2018. which is surely worth reading, and gets deeper than this book into the accomplishments Tversky and Kahneman made in decision theory. They did groundbreaking research that led to improved understanding of how we make decisions. Lewis' books always had energy and told an interesting tale. Good psychology wisdom 2. To demonstrate this, they concocted numerous sc. October 31st 2017 It gives you insights into their friendship but there is a sense that their closeness was a mystery to even their closest friends and this for me is what drives the story. -. Life for a successful therapist in New York begins to unravel on the eve of publishing her first book. You don't need this book to introduce you to concepts of "bounded rationality" and analytical biases. Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2017. I have read the criticism that the theory isn’t “taught” so much here, but Lewis is clear it’s about the “friendship”, after all, and the context of discovery as well as the influences in and around their mathematical psychology/behavioral economics but, still, how much time and money does it take? Reviews. In 2019, does Malcolm Gladwell even need an introduction? Amos Tversky and David Kahneman are psychologists who met in Israel in the 1960’s. I won't spoil it, but Amos really disappointed me with his calcifications toward the end. Make sure you have all these ingredients close by when you take on this book. They’ve simply asked questions that nobody ever thought to ask. How does Amazon calculate star ratings? Some parts of the book I liked very much. It will require all your concentration to not zone out as you are reading it. By the end of this book I was bawling aloud, in total sync with what Lewis was trying to convey: why humans do what we do. Yes, there is some interesting stuff in here, but you have to fight for it. This book is a well-told story, but that’s both its strength and its weakness. By the end of this book I was bawling aloud, in total sync with what Lewis was trying to convey: why humans do what. We must support the popularization of scholarly topics, and I’ve read that it takes, on average, at least 20 years for new ideas, analyses, and discoveries to move out of the academic curriculum of higher education to what we teach our children in secondary schools. Adderall....check. Lewis is a master storyteller, and the way he plays with the tension of both this ideological partnership and the ideas themselves is truly impressive. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain I did enjoy Lewis’ good writing, even if nothing is clearly explained except for about the two, their friendship and thinking, and the environs of that. Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2019. Nearly halfway through I stopped to read some reviews of the book because I had no idea what it was about or where it was going. I've read quite a lot about Kahneman and Tversky, but this book is surprising me, it's much more biographical and anecdotal. Welcome back. I think I need to read Kahenman's "thinking,fast and slow" to understand this book. I think my friend Andrew put this best: only Michael Lewis could make this story exciting. The first episode is intriguing but slow, as there's a lot of build-up early on, but subsequent episodes pick up the pace and The Undoing quickly becomes a page-turner of a series. Unless you are totally into psychology, take a pass on this one. It went back and forth in time in a stream of consciousness way that didn't move the story forward. The Undoing Project is about a compelling collaboration between two men who have the dimensions of great literary figures. Lewis mailed this in - did an intern write it? The Undoing Project is a well-written, well-read study of two brilliant psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahnemann, who changed the nature of economic theory. The Undoing Project – Description How a Nobel Prize–winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality. The importance of these discoveries is that once identified, they are more manageable and help explain various phenomena. If Kahneman and Tversky were giving talks today, they'd be YouTube/TED talk stars. 4.3 out of 5 stars. I had to wonder, as I was reading The Undoing Project, whether Mr. Lewis would really respect his subjects’ doubts about experts or follow the imperative that any book on any problem must conclude with experts confidently solving the problem.Mr. I don’t need that in writing, and maybe I’ve graded too many papers, but I want a clear thesis. While economics usually bores me. Michael Lewis specializes in narratives about quirky individuals who zig when everyone else zags. The Undoing Project – Book Review I’ve just finished Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project which follows two Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky whose work around human decision making, judgment, and bias have influenced the field of decision making and behavioral economics. In fact, I'm still not sure there was a story. What a marvelous and serendipitous pairing these two were! Of course, I’d heard of Daniel Kahneman’s work before, but I’d never read his famous, The story of Daniel Kahneman and his erstwhile companion Amos Tversky, and their creation of the field of behavioral economics. Created by David E. Kelley. “Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic universe. Amos Tversky and David Kahneman are psychologists who met in Israel in the 1960’s. Baseball! After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Why not psychology? Oftentimes, these people don’t even know they have a new perspective on something. These two were opposite in nature but shared a mutual understanding in the way of their thinking. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published I will be bold, and confidently tell you what this book is all about...Humans making decisions are inherently handicapped by systematic biases that make them think they are being logical, but often, or possibly usually, are not. You don't need this book to introduce you to concepts of "bounded rationality" and analytical biases. There is no flow to the story and no energy to make you want to continue reading. In. The book tells the story of how they questioned the conventional thinking and demonstrated the biases that inherent in all of us. Lewis did something else he’d not done before as well. So many people viewed both candidates as a loss; or one as a definite loss of some unknown magnitude, and the other as a possible gain of unknown magnitude. In so doing, they demonstrated that some favoured choices were just not logical. With Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Noah Jupe, Donald Sutherland. This page works best with JavaScript. I also see its roots in Robert Cialdini’s books (Influence, Pre-suasion). Then a curious thing happened. Great humor 3. “In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.” ~ Henry Kissenger, Michael Lewis, the author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short” has an amazing ability to write fascinating books about subject matters that I normally find mind-numbingly boring: sports and the economy. Jun 5, 2016, 1:10 pm. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Such was the case when Lewis covered the Nobel Prize winning duo of Daniel (Danny) Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two psychologists who developed much of the base work behind behavioral finance. I still think Lewis is an excellent writer, but not this time! While Kahneman (Tversky died in 1996 so did not share in the Nobel) wrote Thinking Fast and Slow to share their life work, here Lewis tries to identify why they worked so well together. When this book was chosen for my book group, I looked forward to reading it. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Behavioral finance - avoid being prey on the way to a Nobel Prize, Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017. Author Michael Lewis actually touched a bit on that topic here: This nonfiction is unlike others Michael Lewis has offered us. Most of Lewis's other books have had popular themes or stories that kept you going and engaged the entire time. Lewis accomplished this fairly well. In the past two decades, all five of his books have made The New York Times' bestseller... Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics. Fiction. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. I found this book informative while also exploring the business of baseball. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, by Michael Lewis, is a well-written story about two people who developed some important ideas. Lewis’s new book, The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds, turns back from data to the problem that number crunching leaves unsolved — to the human mind when it is faced with uncertainty, processing evidence, forming judgments and misjudgments, drawing conclusions, arriving at … This book is a major departure from Lewis's other books, of which I have read many. Then a curious thing happened. It. “The Undoing Project” is a delightful read for anyone who is a fan of Kahneman and Tversky’s work. These concepts are available in a great number of mediums now, whether it is MBA courses, free Moocs, or elsewhere. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, by Michael Lewis, is a well-written story about two people who developed some important ideas. Book Review : The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. I found this book informative while also exploring the business of baseball. The Undoing Project is the amazing story of the friendship between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and how that friendship revolutionized the field of psychology. I’m a big fan of Michael Lewis, so when his new book was announced, I put myself on the waiting list for it at my public library. That Lewis’ books are so plentiful, popular, and apparently all on cutting-edge issues, yet the books don’t include full references has to be part of some problem. 4.3 out of 5. To me it feels as if Michael Lewis was having so much fun delving into the lives of two eminent psychologists that he forgot about his readers. If you're looking for some personal insight into K&T, this is the book. . It's also absolutely free to download and read. I don't know that it's fitting that Kahneman wound up winning the Nobel while Tversky did not, but hopefully it provid. When Psychology strapped on its parachute and dropped into the Kingdom of Economists, most of the natives rushed off to defend Rational Man from the attack of Emotionalists. Some parts of the book I liked very much. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. I’ve been captivated by other Michael Lewis books. From writer David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and director Susanne Bier (The Night Manager), the limited series focuses on Nicole Kidman’s Grace Fraser, a successful therapist, and her devoted husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), and their young son who attends an elite private school in New York City.A chasm opens in Grace's … What made this book special is that Lewis made baseball interesting for people who are not usual fans of the sport. His talent lies in the ability to find people---the outliers, the rebels, the freaks---who have a unique perspective and new ways at looking at old problems. This one does not. Being a baseball lover, one of my favorite books is Michael Lewis' Moneyball where he follows the low budget 2002 Oakland A's during their remarkable, division winning season. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. I have read other Michael Lewis books and totally enjoyed them, even when the topics were not a subject I was particularly interested it. The book is fun to hear, as both characters have lively, competitive personalities. I think my friend Andrew put this best: only Michael Lewis could make this story exciting. To start with the mundane and annoying: for a book with this much technical content, terms, and names an index almost seems a necessity, yet none was provided. These two Noble Prize winning psychologists made groundbreaking discoveries in the behavior and … And here's a new review of The Undoing Project from April 20, 2017, in which the reviewer is concerned about the potential for unconscious manipulation, that is, that cognitive science is being used to manipulate rather than to remove the sources of bias. First of all, I feel somewhat guilty about the rating. To demonstrate this, they concocted numerous scenarios and asked students and others to choose between various courses of action. He has attempted the same here about Tversky and Kahneman. but perhaps missing something important to you, Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2017. Sheeraz Raza. Michael Lewis, the author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short” has an amazing ability to write fascinating books about subject matters that I normally find mind-numbingly boring: sports and the economy. “The Undoing Project” gives lots of insights about the birth of heuristics, bias’ and behavioural psychology.