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Chess and the Cold War

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.

About the Author

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/03/chess-and-the-cold-war
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