Review of The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Author: Michael Lewis
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​Absolutely wonderful. Michael Lewis successfully blends two biographies, an intellectual love story (there really is no other way to describe the Daniel Kahneman/Amos Tversky partnership), astute sketches of the work they did (in heuristics and biases), and how the partnership had ripple effects in a myriad of areas (from economics to psychology, from medicine to the military, and beyond). 

As with most Lewis books, the writing moves along at a brisk pace, is never dull, and fleshes out the men behind the scientific work.  And their work was groundbreaking. Had Tversky lived longer, he would have shared the eventual Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (awarded in 2002) with Kahneman. Having read Kahneman’s outstanding 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Lewis’s exploration of the Kahneman and Tversky was even more effecting. Lewis’ excellent work in offering up a vantage point into where Kahneman and Tversky came from, the events that shaped them, their intellectual make-ups, and the alchemy of their partnership is a real treat. This added depth to the scientists only makes me appreciate their work all the more. 

Highly recommended for anyone, but especially those who have read Thinking, Fast and Slow, any book on behavioral economics, or students of how human cognition leads us astray. A fantastic book that I couldn’t put down.