Scan barcode
A review by kah277
The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science and the Human Brain by David Shenk
5.0
I love these niche history books that document events through a different lens. In this book, you start by learning the origins of chess that take you nearly 1500 years back to Persia, and watch it quickly migrate to the European continent during the Islamic Renaissance. From there it undergoes a few notable changes (swapped out the elephant for the bishop because no one knew what an elephant was in northern Europe; and swapped out the minister for a Queen thanks to the highly revered Queen Adelaide. The queen’s piece power was then expanded thanks to several extremely powerful queens at the same time – most notably Isabella of Spain and Mary Queen of Scots).
In between these slivers of historical context, the author methodically took you through each move of “The Immortal Game” – in what began as an unassuming game played in a London pub in 1851 quickly turned awe-inspiring when an absolute madlad sacrificed 2 rooks, a bishop, and a queen to win a game against one of the worlds greatest!!
The book also touched on how chess has been used as an instrument to teach things like geometric progression, abstract thinking, and game theory. It depicted studies that analyzed how the mind of a grandmaster thinks; and the author argues, in which I fully agree, that chess in its purest form isn’t brute memorization of openings and endgames but it is an art. All in all, this was probably the easiest 5 star review I’ve given this year.
In between these slivers of historical context, the author methodically took you through each move of “The Immortal Game” – in what began as an unassuming game played in a London pub in 1851 quickly turned awe-inspiring when an absolute madlad sacrificed 2 rooks, a bishop, and a queen to win a game against one of the worlds greatest!!
The book also touched on how chess has been used as an instrument to teach things like geometric progression, abstract thinking, and game theory. It depicted studies that analyzed how the mind of a grandmaster thinks; and the author argues, in which I fully agree, that chess in its purest form isn’t brute memorization of openings and endgames but it is an art. All in all, this was probably the easiest 5 star review I’ve given this year.