ABSTRACT
Immediately after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Don DeLillo seemed to be uncertain as to whether 9/11 created a traumatic rupture in US history. When the analogy between game theory and the Cold War was established, military strategy was primarily compared to poker, conceived as a two-person zero sum game with a winner and a loser. As a concealed game with strategic elements such as bluffing and deception, poker seemed to come closest to revealing the principles of Cold War politics. In the realm of psychology, game theory turned out to be particularly adaptable to neurocognitive approaches that seek to elucidate the neural basis of decision-making. The National League game can be seen as an event that masks and reveals the political realities of the Cold War era. In the course of the novel, Lianne comes to embrace the focus on context and relationality, and she gains a new perspective on 9/11.
