Sorry states: Apologies in international politics

Wintrobe explains most terms that are outside the social science and statistical mainstream, but some difficulties remain. For example, readers not familiar with economics may need to google ‘‘indifference curves’’ and ‘‘corner solutions’’ while reading the book. It would have helped if there had been brief descriptions of these concepts, or at least links to brief descriptions. Readers who are not mathematically oriented will still be able to get a solid understanding of the ideas because the book presents the important ideas in multiple ways. But readers from social science backgrounds will need to keep in mind that symbols are explicitly defined and do not have the meanings they are used to. In addition, the use of subscripts in formulae is descriptive and does not imply that matrices are involved. Although Wintrobe denies the role of altruism, he bases this denial on a very specific way of construing altruism. Throughout the book, he strongly emphasizes solidarity, a concept that many would consider strongly related to altruism.