I first read this book in 1980. It was a gift from my best and wisest friend, the hardcover version which I still treasure to this day. I have since probably bought half a dozen copies of this for the distinct reason that I felt someone merited a copy as a gift. This book makes you stop and think about yourself, your life and your expectations. It does not criticize your path nor does it necessarily offer an alternative. It just makes you think....... in an easy, enjoyable manner. This book won't give you the "secret" to a fulfilling life of health, wealth or whatever else you seek, but it will make you think...... and every now and then you may actually catch yourself smiling as you do so. Recommended, highly - but more so, fondly remembered 20 years, university, failed and successful career prospects, failed and successful romantic prospects later. Yes so ever fondly remembered.

Suits' claim that he is not furthering the extensive work done in the field of game theory is correct, but i feel he underestimates his contribution to our understanding of the importance of liesure activities in our lives. i am not so interested in the mathematical proofs provided by Von Nueman and Morgenstern, and how game theory is applicable to life, as i am in discovering why i have such a fascination with games. Suits' Grasshopper, via a Platonic dialogue, examines the nature of the game, what it is, why it is employed, etc. This already effective narrative structure is further enhanced by the Grasshopper's many digressions and introductions of hypothetical characters and situations. Suits has created a meta-fictional forum for both discharging his ideas and entertaining the reader. i found myself compelled forward, relishing every word, and fascinated by Suits' logic process and conclusions. i recommend this title to anyone interested in a hybrid of game theory and actual game play; the book does not reduce games to a mathematical model but it also avoids describing any one game in particular. Rather Suits seems interested in analyzing the structure and nature of games as a whole. It is a philosophical outlook on a very intriguing subject.

This book have a bad title, must be "Theory of Modeling and Simulation with DEVS".

There are not a real Integration about Discrete Event and Continuous Complex Dynamic Systems. Only a Discret Event Systems Specification (DEVS), nothing more that DEVS. The book is anything but no visual simulation, no numerics management, no probabilities, no DAE-equations, no research operations, no object simulation, no ...

The DEVS concept born with the promise of join different formalism in the 70's (join discreet and continuous simulation), but yet the concept actually in the book is very primitive and not consider real numerical methods in only one layer (remember that many real commercial simulation software is not based in DEVS concepts. Why?, -Maybe, the DEVS concept have a rigorous and innecesary strictness in the framework concepts in modeling and simulation.)

For other hand, this book have bad thigs and good things.

Bad things:

- The algorithms presented are only fragments of pseudocode like C++ (or Java?). Where is all framework code?.
- The concepts are not in a today systemic/cibernetic vision. This is bad, because the definitions and concepts are yet of 70's. (the book is a second edition, where is the change?).
- Actually the DEVS is considered the corner stone of basic theory of discreet simulations according to autor and others, but in a book there are not real simulations for probe the theory.
- Where is THE continuous complex dynamic systems?.
- Lack of code production of real numerical and computacional methods.

The good things:

- If you don't know what is a DEVS this book is your resp.
- Is a source of excellent ideas, in special the study of Quantization and the Systems Design and Environments of M&S (IV Cap.).

Finally, the best of book is not the DEVS concepts (the book is 80% about DEVS), is the math-way how the Autor try define a basic Simulation Framework independent of the model.

Because the above, is a must have in a simulations books.

I am a professional model/actor so I picked this book up to become a better model/actor. Boy was I surprised! After reading this book my knowledge of computer systems has increased 10 fold. It has also expanded my range as an actor. I have gone on several sci-fi type acting auditions and guess what? I landed every single part (there were only two actually). Because I have read this book I now have a pretty solid background in electrical engineering or at least enough to fake an acting audition, HA!! But seriously this was a great book with lots of neat-o pictures that look pretty even when they are upside down. So if you are interested in science stuff or want to learn how to sound like you know what you are talking about read this book. By the way those two acting jobs I got were for the Chicago plays - "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" and "OW! Those are Vice Grips".

This book looks somewhat difficult but I think that it is the best book for whom researchs modelling and simulation methodology. Based on mathematics, most contents of it were explained rigorously. From the origin of its 1976 version, now in the 2'nd book, DEVS(discrete event system specification) formalism has been extended to cover the continuous state system as well. In addition to, the various extended versions of DEVS, such as Parallel DEVS, Real-time DEVS, Fuzzy DEVS, has been aloso dealt in it.

If you are familiar with the set-theory and the system theory (dealing with inputs and outputs) and looking for the simulation methodology from any IO system view, the book must be the best book to you.

I have always been a fan of the intellectual debates in the New York Review of Books letters to the editor pages. This book consists of two articles by Crews and the subsequent debates surrounding them. I would have liked to see better defenses of Freud, but none of the eminent defenders of psychoanalysis is able to mount a serious challenge to Crews's devastating attacks.

This devastating book has two parts: (1) The Unknown Freud, where the reader gets a picture of Freud as a dictator, a megalomaniac and egotripper. A pope who alone knew the truth and who founded a secret commission to protect his 'church' against the heathen. He was a bad psychoanalyst (e.g. the Wolf Man case) and a venal man (e.g. the catastrophic Horace Fink case, where he tried to get his own hands on some money of the heiress).
I agree with the author that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience - statements cannot be tested and the research results cannot be verified uniformly. Although it is not totally without meaning (Karl Popper), it is not a science.
(2) the revenge of the repressed
A frontal attack on the caste of the psychoanalysts, depicted as 'religious zealots, self-help evangelists, sociopolitical ideologues, and outright charlatans who trade in the ever seductive currency of guilt and blame, while keeping the doctor's fees mounting.'
The author is particularly severe with their latest 'school' : the 'recovered memory movement', based on the rape of children by their parents (really!). This lead to false accusations and condemnations of innocent people. No wonder the author predicts an accelerating collapse of psychoanalysis as a respected institution.
A much needed and courageous book to halt a profession riding at full speed on a misty highway. And a much needed angle on Freud as a person, written in a style to slaughter the not so innocent father of psychoanalysis.
After reading this book, I agree with Peter Madawar, who called doctrinaire psychoanalytic theory "the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century".

Frederick Crews really knows how to tap that deep reservoir of hostility found in modern Freudian psychoanalysts. In 1993 and 1994 FC wrote two essays in the New York Review of Books debunking Freud in the first, and tearing to shreds the recovered memory movement in the second.

These two essays and the letters in response to them have been put into the book The Memory Wars. As someone trained in experimental psychology you can guess my own personal bias in this matter. Crews discusses Freud's botched cases; his frequent vacillation in theory formation; some of his sillier theories; and his serious interjection of personal bias into the formation of his beliefs. The main problem with the whole Freudian system is the total lack of scientific evidence supporting it. Freudian psychoanalysis is founded on anecdote and supported by anecdotes. To be fair, much current non-Freudian therapy is also based on anecdote. Indignant Freud followers write back, and their letters are indeed interesting (and often pompous).

The second half of the book takes on the recovered memory movement. It would be great to poke fun at this movement if it weren't for the fact that it has caused so much damage to all parties involved. Symptoms checklists are published with the statement if you suffer from these symptoms you may be a victim of sexual abuse. Read the list and you will find that the majority of Americans will find that they have been abused. It's all a patient seduction game with the intent to make big money. Hospitals have even set up units to treat such patients (Having worked in the psychiatric hospital industry I am well aware of the "product lines" that such facilities set up in order to fill beds). Crews does an excellent job of dissecting the memory movement, and once again we get to read the indignant responses.

Those who believe that psychological therapy should be based on sound scientific evidence will love this book. Those who have accepted Freudianism with a religious like faith will, of course, hate it. To me this whole subject is analogous to the evolution vs. creationist debate. It's science versus pseudoscience.