David
Shenk: 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
Doubleday, September 5, 2006. List Price: $26.00 (Hardcover, 352 pages).
David Shenk is a national best-selling 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.
The Immortal Game is an accessible, non-technical introduction
to the game of chess. It starts out with a survey of the origins of the game
in fifth- or sixth-century Persia, and winds its way to the present day, touching
on subjects like Shenk's own amateurish pursuit of the game, erratic geniuses
like Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer, chess in schools today, computer chess
and his great-great-grandfather Samuel Rosenthal, who was an eminent player
in late 19th-century Europe. Readers get a strong sense of why chess has remained
so popular over the ages and why its study still has much to tell us about
the workings of the human mind.
Amazon's Booklist Gilbert Taylor writes: Shenk's attitude is one that many
readers will share – he is attracted to the game's infinite possibilities
but also intimidated by its difficult body of analytic knowledge. Seeking a
reason for the popularity of chess from its Persian and Indian origins 1,500
years ago to the present, Shenk decides it lies in chess' fluidity as metaphor.
It was plainly conceived as a war game, but feudal European society found deeper
meanings within it, as cognitive psychologists and logicians do today. Rangy,
anecdotal, and nontechnical, Shenk's is popular chess history at its most readable.
Long Live the King
There is a review of the book in the New York Times in which by Katie Hafner
writes: "David Shenk begins with the obligatory discussion of what is
known about the beginnings of the game: Some 1,500 years ago in Persia, by
way of India, there emerged a two-player war game called chatrang, played with
a counselor where the queen now sits and elephants instead of bishops. Rather
than being invented all at once “in a fit of inspiration by a single
king, general, philosopher or court wizard,” the game we know today was
“the result of years of tinkering by a large, decentralized group, a
slow achievement of collective intelligence.”
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.” Shenk is convincing: “We face in our modern, splintered
world not only a crisis in education, but more pointedly a crisis of understanding
– of thought and of willingness to engage in thought.” Thinking
tools like chess, Shenk argues, can “help our minds expand, grow comfortable
with abstraction and learn to navigate complex systems.”
Interview on ABC News
Chess and Alzheimer's – both subjects on which David Shenk has written
books. ABC News invited him into their studio and discussed the connection
in the following interview.
Reviews
"Shenk, a spry writer . . . [offers] a strong case for the game's bewitching
power."
-- The New York Times
"A thrilling tour . . . an engaging, colorful look at a world that blissfully
remains black-and-white."
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Fresh and fascinating...a world-spanning story [Shenk] relates with
skill and verve."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"Fascinating . . . [Shenk] writes about chess history with contagious
zest."
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Shenk weaves a masterful tale that all readers can enjoy, no matter
how little they know about chess."
-- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Fun, factual, and a good read . . . Not a reference book to be stored
on a shelf [but] a book to be read and enjoyed, and even read again . . . buy
this book!"
-- Chess Life magazine
"Besides detailing chess's broader social significance, Shenk brings
it to life with tales of its personal impact . . . Shenk's passion will leave
readers yearning to play."
-- Fast Company
"A globe-spanning, brain-stretching social history . . . Shenk's curiosity
equips the reader to look at a board of chess pieces and understand what got
them there and the endless places they could go."
-- Paste Magazine
