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 » (Reprint)

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.

A surprising, charming, and ever-fascinating history of the seemingly simple game that has had a profound effect on societies the world over. Why has one game, alone among thousands of games played throughout human history, not only survived, but thrived within every culture it has touched? Chess has been a remarkably omnipresent factor in the development of civilization since its invention, and David Shenk unearths the hidden history of a game that has influenced everything from mathematics to military strategies, computer science, and art.

The New York Times - Katie Hafner

Critics may point out that Shenk himself isn t much of a chess player, as he readily admits. But a popular survey like this one doesn t need a grandmaster, and Shenk, a spry writer who has also written books on Alzheimer s disease, technology and other subjects, has a good sense of what might interest a general reader. Although the book s subtitle promises a history of chess, its more interesting pages offer something closer to meditation, personal revelation and the exploration of what he calls "the deep history of chess s entanglement with the human mind."