Full disclosure: I'm one of the contributors to this book, having written the chapter on the history of video games as well as the chapter on games and society. Still, I'm proud of it, and we got email from a professor that said that my chapter on history was her class' favorite. Woot!
I got very little out of it. Only the first couple of chapters really applied to what I'm doing. I can see beginning developers getting a lot out of it, though.