The evolution of cooperation

The Evolution of Cooperation is a 1984 book by political scientist Robert Axelrod that expanded a highly influential paper of the same name, and popularized the study upon which the original paper had been based. Since 2006, reprints of the book have included a foreword by Richard Dawkins and been marketed as a revised edition. "The Evolution of Cooperation" is a 1981 paper by Axelrod and evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton in the scientific literature, which became the most cited publication in the field of political science.Evolution of cooperation is a general term for investigation into how cooperation can emerge and persist (also known as cooperation theory) as elucidated by the application of game theory. The book provides detailed explanation on the evolution of cooperation, beyond traditional game theory. The academic literature concerned with those forms of cooperation not easily handled in traditional game theory, with special consideration of evolutionary biology, largely took its modern form as a result of Axelrod's and Hamilton's influential 1981 paper and the book that followed.