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Maybe someday
44
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
35/100Critics
53/100Scholars
Author:
Oliver Roeder
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
Date:
January 25, 2022
A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of whyâand howâwe play them.
What The Reviewers Say
... illuminating.
The subtitle of Mr. Roeder’s book—'A Human History'—has a whiff of end-resigned melancholy, implicitly contrasting with a computer-dominated future. In point of fact, Mr. Roeder doesn’t concentrate much on the purely human history of his seven games.
He begins with the long history of games, going back 5,000 years to prehistoric Mesoamerican settlements, and asks: Why does almost every society engage in games and why have certain games survived for centuries? His suggested answers range from the simple — because we’re bored — to the complex.
Roeder takes a fascinating look at seven enduring games: checkers, chess, Go, backgammon, poker, Scrabble and bridge.
