John McDonald looks at the elusive thread of opposition and conflict that runs through human interrelationships, from the striking of a bargain to the clash of war. He discusses poker; game theory, as it applies to games but mainly to business; the strategies of buyers and sellers; and finally military and other applications.

This study uses Domesday book data and management science methods to examine manorial production efficiency in medieval Essex in 1086. It also reveals facts about economic history. Some of the questions examined by this work include: which tenants-in-chief ran efficient estates; how was productivity affected by soil type, the size of the estate, the technology and the institutional framework of the time, and the proximity of a market centre; what input made the major contribution to the net value of output; did slaves make a greater contribution to the manorial systems.