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GENERAL
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I never know exactly who to thank, or whether to say “whom” to thank. The problem is not a deficit of gratitude but a surplus of debt. I owe so many people that I don’t know where to start. But there are people without whom this book simply would not have come to pass, and I’ll focus on them.
Danny Kahneman and Barbara Tversky, for starters. When I met Danny, in late 2007, I had no ambition to write a book about him. Once I acquired that ambition, I spent roughly five years making him comfortable with it. Even then he remained, um, circumspect. “I don’t think it is possible to describe the two of us without simplifying, without making us too large, and without exaggerating the differences between our characters,” he once said. “That’s the nature of the task, and I am curious to see how you will deal with it—though not curious enough to want to read it early.” Barbara was a different story. Back in the late 1990s, by bizarre coincidence, I taught, or attempted to teach, her son Oren. As I was unaware of the existence of Amos Tversky, I was unaware that he was Amos Tversky’s son. Anyway, I went to Barbara bearing a character reference from my former pupil. Barbara gave me access to Amos’s papers, and her guidance. Amos’s children, Oren, Tal, and Dona, offered a view of Amos that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. I remain deeply grateful to the Tversky family.
I came to this story as I’ve come to a lot of stories, as an interloper. Without Maya Bar-Hillel and Daniela Gordon, I would have been lost in Israel. In Israel, over and over again, I had the feeling that the people I was interviewing were not only more interesting than I was but also more capable of explaining what needed to be explained. That this story did not require a writer as much as it did a stenographer. I want to thank several Israelis, in particular, for allowing me to take dictation: Verred Ozer, Avishai Margalit, Varda Liberman, Reuven Gal, Ruma Falk, Ruth Bayit, Eytan and Ruth Sheshinski, Amira and Yeshu Kolodny, Gershon Ben-Shakhar, Samuel Sattath, Ditsa Pines, and Zur Shapira.
In psychology I was not much more naturally at home than I was in Israel. I needed my guides there, too. For their services in this capacity I’d like to thank Dacher Keltner, Eldar Shafir, and Michael Norton. Many former students and colleagues of Amos and Danny’s were both generous with their time and full of insight. I’m especially grateful to Paul Slovic, Rich Gonzalez, Craig Fox, Dale Griffin, and Dale Miller. Steve Glickman offered a lovely guided tour of the history of psychology. And I’m not quite sure what I would have done if Miles Shore had not existed, or had not thought to interview Danny and Amos back in 1983. Miles Shore would be painful to undo.
One way to think of a book is as a series of decisions. I want to thank the people who helped me to make them in this one. Tabitha Soren, Tom Penn, Doug Stumpf, Jacob Weisberg, and Zoe Oliver-Grey read drafts of the manuscript and offered loving advice. Janet Byrne, who will one day be understood as having turned copyediting into an art form, fixed the book so that it was fit for consumption. Without the pushing and prodding of my editor, Starling Lawrence, I wouldn’t have bothered to write it in the first place, and if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have worked as hard at it as I wound up working. Finally, the possibility that this might be the last book that I ever give Bill Rusin to sell got my rear end in the desk chair sooner than I otherwise would have, so that he might work his magic. But not for the last time, I hope.
ALSO BY MICHAEL LEWIS
Flash Boys
The Big Short
Boomerang
Home Game
The Blind Side
Coach
Moneyball
Next
The New New Thing
Losers
Pacific Rift
Liar’s Poker
EDITED BY MICHAEL LEWIS
Panic
Copyright © 2017 by Michael Lewis
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