The Evolution of Cooperation · What Did They Read?

Episodes about this book

1 episode

47. Robert Axelrod on Why Being Nice, Forgiving, and Provokable are the Best Strategies for Life

People I (Mostly) Admire, 7 November 2026. The author is the guest. The book comes up at 1 min 4 sec in.

The entire episode is an interview with Robert Axelrod, the book's author. Host Steve Levitt describes reading it as assigned reading for a college economics course, calling it one of the few things that ever blew his mind and changed how he thought about the world—inspiring him to consider academic research for the first time. The conversation then works through the book's central ideas on game theory, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and the tit-for-tat strategy.

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