This collectively authored handbook of over 750 pages focuses on why the chosen computational methodology relies on the joint use of computational modeling and simulation of society, as opposed to experimental or natural language approaches, when global interactions are complex. In other words, the authors primarily assume the use of computational agent-based modeling, and those processes that can be embodied in such theories, while setting aside the basic methods from sociology, political science, social behavior, and experimental management science. This view is explained in three introductory chapters of Part 1. The first formulates the above scope and links it with some work by Herbert Simon; the second recounts the history of computer simulation concepts (from system dynamics to agent-based models); and the third proposes a taxonomy of the types of relevant simulation.

The reader might normally find such a view quite restrictive or unclear, especially as the applications are only addressed starting on page 499, in the last part of the book. For pedagogical reasons, it would have been better to place that part earlier. Eight chapters address quite heterogeneous topics meeting the criteria of global applicability: ecological and epidemiological management, simulating organizational design mostly by partial orders, distributed peer-to-peer computer systems, simulating animal social behavior, agents in market simulations, traffic simulation of people and goods, agent-based modeling of the power structures in Afghan society (with some qualitative elements), and analysis of policy approaches (Club of Rome, Native American societies, and so on). In those eight chapters, no models are presented, but each offers formal discussions of key aspects and reviews of literature, including elimination of implausible assumptions, verification and validation, change, cooperation and group coordination, dominance styles, distribution of tasks, learning, bargaining, auctions, power games, evidence-based modeling, models of ideas, and the effects of theoretical assumptions.

Part 2 covers computational modeling in general (with only scant attention given to specification techniques, regrettably); knowledge and structure in agent-based models; the programmer’s detection of errors and artifacts; the overview, design, and details (ODD) documentation protocol; simulation validation techniques; the inclusion of mathematical submodels (input-output, Markov); and analyzing results with patterns or explanations. Chapter 10 explores interesting participatory approaches to social complexity.

Part 3 concentrates on the use of a few global interaction types in the social simulation literature: general game theory, constraint satisfaction, evidence theory, legal and social constraints or norms, reputation, social networks, spatial distribution, learning models and neural networks, and biological evolution mechanisms and genetics. Some of these chapters are supported with examples.

Each chapter begins with a useful introduction that answers the question, “Why read this chapter?” and includes its own reference list. There is also a small overall index.

While this volume has attempted to capture the status of emerging research, too often the applications only serve as illustrations of some theoretical concepts linked mostly to agent-based theory. The purpose might have been better served by presenting a few basic models and showing how they fared in real social situations. It is difficult to compare and contrast these results with those of other studies of the same processes in other disciplines such as sociology, economics, political science, and social behavior, which encompass similar key aspects. A key issue the authors do not address is of course the extent to which the individual behaviors of humans, corporations, and other entities dominate the normative effects of agent models, if indeed they do.

Because this book contains almost no explicit case models, it would be difficult for researchers interested in building new models to gain from it more than a collection of extensions for theoretical validation purposes. For its richness and diversity, I can recommend this text to advanced researchers working with agent-based approaches to the simulation of global social phenomena.