An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling

This book eloquently captures the excitement of understanding natural and social phenomena by recreating them in computer simulations. The agent-based approach championed here provides deeply satisfying scientific explanations because it provides a bridge between levels of description, showing how high-level, macroscopic properties, such as crystal formation, tumor shape, flocking, population cycles, social coordination, and transportation networks, can spontaneously emerge from lower-level interactions among agents rather than being explicitly programmed into a model. When combined with active exploration using Uri Wilensky's free and widely used NetLogo programming environment, reading this book equips students and researchers with a new language for generating and expressing scientific theories.

Robert Goldstone, Chancellor's Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington

A clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction. This is the best book out there for learning (or teaching) the art and science of agent-based modeling. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this essential area of complex systems science.

Melanie Mitchell, Professor, Portland State University and the Santa Fe Institute; author of Complexity: A Guided Tour

This outstanding book offers a tour d'horizon of agent-based modeling for students, teachers, and scientists at all levels, using NetLogo, the 'low-threshold/unknown-ceiling' language developed by Uri Wilensky. With this Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling, he and William Rand have set the standard for textbooks on this topic. An essential contribution.

Joshua M. Epstein, Johns Hopkins University and the Santa Fe Institute