If you were ever at all comfortable with integral calculus and differential equations, for example if you took these in college, then J. Epstein's book is a wonderful breezy read through a smorgasbord of social science and biology. The book covers a series of his mathematical lectures on combat, arms races, revolutions, drug epidemics, ecosystems, etc.. All the while, he weaves threads of connectivity between the topics.



This is not a book of proofs. Rather, it reminds me of what the book Freakonomics might have been like if it had equations. [By the way, I wish everyone in the world could get to page 82 of this book, to gain an insight into the ideas of herd immunity and decentralized totalitarianism.] Although the book does linear and nonlinear treatments throughout, the final chapter/lecture delves more deeply into understanding the issues of nonlinear models. Unfortunately, I am now left with a thirst I cannot slake, the thirst for the next few chapters after I've finished the book. Joshua, when can I get the next one??