Finite and Infinite Games
A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
About the book
The divide between two kinds of play organizes James P. Carse's philosophical treatise. Finite games, such as chess, politics or war, have fixed rules, set boundaries and winners, and are played in order to end. Infinite games, among them culture, love and life itself, have rules that change and boundaries that stay open, and they are played so that play can continue and new players can join. Carse carries the contrast across many fields, setting theatrical roles performed to a script against dramatic choices made in the present, and applies it to subjects from acting to evil and science. Philosopher David Chalmers has described it as an overlooked classic of the philosophy of living.
Content marketer Andra Zaharia lists it among the books she would read to start a marketing career, since she believes good marketers understand human nature. Product manager Ashley Hathaway named it her favorite of the books she read for the altMBA.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Andra Zaharia (Freelance Content Marketer/The Content Habit)
While I was thinking of the best books to add to this short list, I realized that not even half of them are directly related to digital marketing. This is because I believe that the best marketers are people who understand human nature deeply and aim to bring out the best in it. Call me naive, but that’s how I see it. If I were to want to pursue a career in marketing, I’d read [...] Finite and Infinite Games.
Ashley Hathaway (Enterprise Product Manager)
I’d say Finite & Infinite games was my favorite & quite impactful. They were all impactful, actually. I read my altMBA books on a beach in Kauai (highly recommended). It was odd though because I was by myself and it was just- total knowledge bombs all over the place. Reading the altMBA books in rapid succession like that took a few months to digest honestly.
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