The American Spectator

AmSpecBlog

Chess and the Cold War

By Doug Bandow on 1.3.09 @ 6:04PM

Since TAS can't cover every good book that's published, I want to encourage readers interested in the politics behind the game of chess--particularly during the Cold War--to pick up a copy of White King and Red Queen, published by Houghton Mifflin.  The author, Daniel Johnson, is a real journalist who covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, among other important events.  It's a fun book which details how the Evil Empire attempted to use chess to its own ends, and how two determined (and highly idiosyncratic) individuals, Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov, broke the Soviet chess machine.  I review it in the Washington Times and highly recommend it.