Items related to The Immortal Game: A History of Chess & Its Consequences
Synopsis
Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its thirty-two figurative pieces, moving about its sixty-four black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? Why has it driven some of its greatest players into paranoia and madness, and yet is hailed as a remarkably powerful intellectual tool?
Nearly everyone has played chess at some point in their lives. Its rules and pieces have served as a metaphor for society, influencing military strategy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and literature and the arts. It has been condemned as the devil’s game by popes, rabbis, and imams, and lauded as a guide to proper living by other popes, rabbis, and imams. Marcel Duchamp was so absorbed in the game that he ignored his wife on their honeymoon. Caliph Muhammad al-Amin lost his throne (and his head) trying to checkmate a courtier. Ben Franklin used the game as a cover for secret diplomacy.
In his wide-ranging and ever-fascinating examination of chess, David Shenk gleefully unearths the hidden history of a game that seems so simple yet contains infinity. From its invention somewhere in India around 500 A.D., to its enthusiastic adoption by the Persians and its spread by Islamic warriors, to its remarkable use as a moral guide in the Middle Ages and its political utility in the Enlightenment, to its crucial importance in the birth of cognitive science and its key role in the aesthetic of modernism in twentieth-century art, to its twenty-first-century importance in the development of artificial intelligence and use as a teaching tool in inner-city America, chess has been a remarkably omnipresent factor in the development of civilization.
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Review
"Shenk offers a free-form history of chess that juxtaposes a macro-level narrative of its spread from India and the Middle East to the courts of medieval Europe with a micro-analysis of a famous game played in London in 1851." --'Guardian'
"The game acts as a microcosm for wider social issues... A broad historical narrative, ranging from the earliest records to the latest development in computer chess... That David Shenk is a self-confessed chess amateur does not hold him back as a guide." --'Financial Times'
"David Shenk juxtaposes a move-by-move analysis of the game... with a general history of chess, from its origins in 6th-century Persia to its importance for the development of artificial intelligence in the 21st century." --'London Review of Books'
About the Author
DAVID SHENK is a national-bestselling author of four previous books, including The Forgetting and Data Smog, and a contributor to National Geographic, Gourmet, Harper's, The New Yorker, NPR and PBS. The Forgetting was hailed by John Bayley as "the definitive work on Alzheimer's," and subsequently inspired an Emmy-award winning PBS film of the same name. Shenk frequently lectures on issues of health, aging, and technology, and has advised the President's Council on Bioethics. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 0385510101
- ISBN 13 9780385510103
- BindingHardcover
- LanguageEnglish
- Edition number1
- Number of pages304
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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
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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
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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
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ISBN 13: 9780385510103
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Hardcover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. 1st Edition. 327 pp., xvii. Stated: "First Edition" with '1' in number line. Following the Prologue, Introduction and "Pieces and Moves", Contents divided into 12 Chapters in 3 Sections: I. OPENINGS (Where We Come From) (1) " ' Understanding Is the Essential Weapon ' : Chess and Our Origins", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVE 1; (2) "House of Wisdom: Chess and the Muslim Renaissance", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVE 2; (3) "The Morals of Men and the Duties of Nobles and Commoners: Chess and Medieval Obligation", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVE 3"; (4) "Making Men Circumspect: Modern Chess, the Accumulation of Knowledge, and the March to Infinity", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 4 AND 5"; PART II MIDDLE GAME (Who We Are) (5) "Benjamin Franklin's Opera Chess and the Enlightenment", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 6 AND 7; (6) "The Emperor and the Immigrant: Chess and the Unexpected Gifts of War", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 8 AND 9; (7) "Chunking and Tasking: Chess and the Working Mind", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 10 AND 11; (8) " ' Into its Vertiginous Depths ' : Chess and the Shattered Mind", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 12-16; (9) "A Victorious Synthesis: Chess and Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 17-19; (10) "Beautiful Problems: Chess and Modernity", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 20 AND 21; PART III ENDGAME (Where We Are Going) (11) " ' We Are Sharing Our World with Another Species, One That Gets Smarter and More Independent Every Year ' Chess and the New Machine Intelligence", THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 22 AND 23 (CHECKMATE); (12) "The Next War, Chess and the Future of Human Intelligence"; Coda, pp. 239-240; Acknowledgments, pp. 241-244; APPENDIX I: "The Rules of Chess", pp. 245-253; APPENDIX II: "The Immortal Game (Recap) and Five Other Great Games", pp. 255-279; APPENDIX III: "Benjamin Franklin's ' The Morals of Chess ' ", pp. 281-285; Sources and Notes, pp.287-313; Index, pp. 315-327. "Chess and Islam were born about the same time--chess out of a regional need to understand complex new ideas, and Islam out of the Arabs' desperate need for discipline, intelligence, and meaningful community. In the year 612, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, a prosperous merchant from Mecca deeply troubled by the splintered, selfish nature of Arab society, emerged as the Prophet Muhammad with divine instructions on how to unite and transform his people.He called his new belief system 'Islam', meaning "peace through surrender to God." In its essence, Islam was a strict code of ethics requiring subservience to the community and compassion toward the poor. It quickly helped Arab tribes end their constant blood feuds and create an all-powerful supertribe based not on family connection but on shared ideology and security. Islam made Arabia an instant superpower. . . Arab Muslims quickly made [chess] their own. As if invented by Muhammad himself, the game seemed to speak directly to the new Muslim ideals and find its way into the progressive rhetoric of the day. . . ." (pp. 29-30.) Dark Blue boards with Dark blue spine and brilliant silver lettering. Glossy dustwrapper not price-clipped ($26.00) with illustration of over-sized Castle chess piece in black, superimposed upon a black and white board surface and against a cloudy blue sky with Title lettering in an arc across top front cover, subtitle in white letters across upper middle front cover, and continued in an inverted arc across middle front cover; Author name lettering in white letters across bottom front cover. Flawless. (NO previous owner names; NO remainder marks; Clean text.) Gift-Giving Quality. Seller Inventory # 002941
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