War and Human Nature

Authors

Martin L. Cook

Abstract

Stephen Peter Rosen is Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University. In this ambitious volume he attempts to counter the view that economic- rationality models of human behavior adequately explain human decision making. He defines economic rational- ity as the assumption that people “have a stable, ordered, and consistent set of preferences and that they have a stable way of making choices about how to use scarce resources in a manner that gives them the most utility for a given expenditure of resources.” Rosen at- tempts to demonstrate the inadequacy of economic rationality to explain or predict human behavior by drawing on a wide range of empirical research.

Recommended Citation

Cook, Martin L. (2013) "War and Human Nature," Naval War College Review: Vol. 66: No. 1, Article 15.
Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol66/iss1/15