I’m very pleased to receive a book that’s just been delivered (apologies to the courier Cabbage just barked at fiercely). It’s [amazon_link id=”0674047486″ target=”_blank” ]Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America[/amazon_link] by Jonathan Levy. It’s about the developing concept of risk in 19th century America, and the development of risk-management institutions.

[amazon_image id=”0674047486″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Freaks of Fortune[/amazon_image]

The blurb makes it sound fascinating – the argument seems to be that personal freedom meant assuming personal risk – and then offloading it to an insurance company or futures market. So this sounds highly relevant to the post-crisis debate. It also reminded me of course of the magnificent [amazon_link id=”0471295639″ target=”_blank” ]Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk[/amazon_link] by Peter Bernstein. Risk is such an important concept, and one our brains find it so hard to think about, as Daniel Kahneman spelled out in [amazon_link id=”0141033576″ target=”_blank” ]Thinking, Fast and Slow[/amazon_link]. Slow, probablility-calculating thinking takes a lot of effort and energy. Time for some chocolate….

[amazon_image id=”0471295639″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk[/amazon_image]

I’ll write about Freaks of Fortune when I’ve had chance to read it – meanwhile, here is a taster by Jonathan Levy from the Chronicle of Higher Education.