Principles of conflict economics: a primer for social scientists

摘要

Principles of Conflict Economics is a book which presents several interesting qualities for readers who are not specialists in the field of defense or peace economics. First, each of the twelve chapters deals with a well-focused topic. Each chapter is roughly organized in the same way. The topic of the chapter is carefully defined and the main problems are exposed. An economic analysis of the situation is provided and, most of the time, the analysis is beautifully illustrated with stories relying on historical facts. At the end of each chapter there is a bibliographic note which gives the reader the possibility to explore the field in more depth. Second, the economic analysis always relies on a rigorous methodology but does not present major technical difficulties even if a basic knowledge in microeconomics and game theory may be useful, especially for the last three chapters.