A 2001 book by UCLA political science professor Michael Chwe — “Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge” (Princeton University Press) — has been chosen as the seventh selection for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s book club.
For "A Year of Books," Zuckerberg committed himself to reading a different book every other week, beginning Jan. 2. He has invited his Facebook friends to read along with him and comment on a Facebook page dedicated to the project.
“Our books will emphasize learning about new cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies,” Zuckerberg explained in his first post on the page that now has more than 385,000 followers.
Now in its second edition, "Rational Ritual" illuminates a common purpose shared by weddings, the Super Bowl, presidential inaugurations, graduation ceremonies, political rallies and other communal activities with lots of emotional and symbolic content. Chwe argues that these activities help solve "coordination problems," in which taking action requires knowing that other people know what you know and that you know that they know that you know.
“It’s nice that a book that was written long before Facebook existed is relevant for social media,” Chwe said. "Facebook and Twitter are examples of the point that the book makes about common knowledge. They're now the modern infrastructure for generating common knowledge."
Read a New York Times story about the book here.
Chwe, who is an economist, is also the author of “Jane Austen, Game Theorist” (2013, Princeton University Press), a book that argues that the 19th century novelist developed the basic principles of game theory in novels written 150 years before the field was developed by mathematicians.
Living authors selected for “A Year of Books” have participated in a question and answer session posted on the Facebook page. No date has yet been set for an interview with Chwe.