 The great historical breakthrough that officially launched game theory is  von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944),  which those with scholarly interest in game theory should read with classic papers of  John Nash (1950a, 1950b, 1951).  A very useful collection of key foundational papers, all classics, is  Kuhn (1997).  For a contemporary mathematical treatment that is unusually philosophically sophisticated,  Binmore (2005c)  (**) is in a class by itself. The second half of  Kreps (1990)  (**) is the best available starting point for a tour of the philosophical worries surrounding equilibrium selection for normativists.  Koons (1992)  takes these issues further.  Fudenberg and Tirole (1991)  remains the most thorough and complete mathematical text available.  Gintis (2009b)  (**) provides a text crammed with terrific problem exercises, which is also unique in that it treats evolutionary game theory as providing the foundational basis for game theory in general. Recent developments in fundamental theory are well represented in  Binmore, Kirman and Tani (1993).  Anyone who wants to apply game theory to real human choices, which are generally related stochastically rather than deterministically to axioms of optimization, needs to understand quantal response theory (QRE) as a solution concept. The original development of this is found in  McKelvey and Palfrey (1995)  and  McKelvey and Palfrey (1998).  Goeree, Holt, and Palfrey (2016) provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review of QRE and its leading applications.