Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time
By David Edmonds and John Eidinow
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
By the authors of the national bestseller Wittgenstein’s Poker, a riveting account of the legendary 1972 chess match between Boris Spassky, the world champion from the Soviet Union, and the American challenger Bobby Fischer
In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer met in Reykjavik, Iceland for a chess match that held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, political intrigue, and cliffhangers. Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow have set out to reexamine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine. A mesmerizing narrative of hubris and despair, Bobby Fischer Goes to War is a biting deconstruction of the Bobby Fischer myth, a nuanced study on the art of brinkmanship, and a revelatory cold war tragicomedy.
David Edmonds
David Edmonds is an award-winning journalists with the BBC. He's the bestselling authors of Bobby Fischer Goes to War and Wittgenstein’s Poker.
Read more from David Edmonds
Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How a Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers At War in the Age of Enlightenment Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Would You Kill the Fat Man?: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faces of 266 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Bobby Fischer Goes to War
Related ebooks
Summary of David Edmonds & John Eidinow's Bobby Fischer Goes to War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Immortal Games of Capablanca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Modern Ideas in Chess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5New York 1924 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unstoppable American: Bobby Fischer’s Road to Reykjavik Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chess Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Middle Game in Chess Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why You Lose at Chess: Second Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov: Volume 1: The Early Years 1921-1948 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Longest Game: The Five Kasparov/Karpov Matches for the World Chess Championship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBullet Chess: One Minute to Mate Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match for the World Chess Championship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devoted to Chess: The Creative Heritage of Yuri Razuvaev Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bobby Fischer: The Career and Complete Games of the American World Chess Champion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Carlsen-Anand 2013: Match for the World Chess Championship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGelfand-Anand 2012: Match for the World Chess Championship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Human Comedy of Chess: A Grandmaster's Chronicles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5London 1922 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Big Book of World Chess Championships: 46 Title Fights - from Steinitz to Carlsen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Analysis of the Game of Chess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBotvinnik: 100 Selected Games Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mortal Games: The Turbulent Genius of Garry Kasparov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Morphy's Games of Chess Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Alexander Alekhine: Fourth World Chess Champion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Zone: The Greatest Winning Streaks in Chess History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
History For You
100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The War of Art: by Steven Pressfield | Includes Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wise as Fu*k: Simple Truths to Guide You Through the Sh*tstorms of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unveiled: How the West Empowers Radical Muslims Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Bobby Fischer Goes to War
139 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Read Early 2008 - Shortly after Fischer's death in early 2008, I was motivated to read this book. I remembered the news reports I heard as a child, but didn't really understand the larger context. There was plenty of context supplied here, but I personally would have liked more focus on the chess games themselves. Still, it held some interest.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Eight years before the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid, there was a miracle on the island of Iceland, played out on a wooden board with sixty-four squares and thirty-two pieces. It was the chess world championships – which had been dominated throughout the 20th Century by the Soviet Union. And they were beaten by a young man from New York. However, the Spassky vs. Fischer world championship had even more drama behind the scenes that there was on the board. Intertwined with the Cold War and Fischer’s own need for control, the match itself was in jeopardy from start to finish. Bobby Fischer Goes to War is really about the behind-the-scenes confrontations that surrounded the match. Edmonds and Eidinow leave analysis of the actual games to hundreds of other books and focus their efforts on understanding the numerous sideshows. With thirty years of distance, they put things into a proper context and provide deep analysis of these weeks in history where a chess match overshadowed Presidential election coverage and the Olympics. The one weakness of Bobby Fischer Goes to War is that it is mostly isolated on that one tournament, so it leaves the reader a lot of questions about where these two men came from and what became of them afterwards. Still, for those who have an interest in the most infamous chess match of all time and want to know the facts from the legends, Bobby Fischer Goes to War delivers a definitive guide.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bobby Fischer Goes to War (2004) is fairly boring. Bobby Fischer is an unsympathetic main character and the chess match wasn't hugely exciting. The amount of detail is over the top, most of dealing with Bobby's strange requests and the chaos it creates to the point of being funny. Ultimately the raw material the author had to work with didn't really interest. It did remind me of playing chess long ago, when it was fashionable, before computers ruined everything.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The cold war played out on a chess board. Fascinating
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The most monumental chess match in the modern era. Fischer vs. Spassky changed popular culture and ignited a "chess boom" in the United States. It was partly played out on the gameboard of politics. It also pitted two wildly different personalities in the elegant but somwhat lazy champion Spassky, and the crude but driven challenger Fischer. Fascinating for even the non chess playing reader. This is not an annotation of games, but a multifaceted reporting of events.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Audiobook: A fascinating analysis of both the players and the chess culture and its history in both the United States and Soviet Union leading up to the famous duel between Fischer and Spassky in 1972 when chess, for a short period of time, captured the attention of the world. Bobby Fischer had never grown up and was uniquely focused on chess. Outside of the game he could be obnoxious, eccentric, bratty, rude, and incomprehensible. At the chess table he was unfailingly polite, obsessed with the rules and the game. The beginning of the book is a bit disjointed with quick summaries of his appearances or lack thereof at national and international tournaments. His paranoia and need for control was already quite apparent as was his chess brilliance (he had little brilliance in most other areas of his life.)The author is stronger when discussing Spassky and chess in Russia. Chess players were expected to play in service to the state where the aftereffects of the "Great Patriotic War" was a sort of Russian exceptionalism that celebrated state nationalism. Everything was in service of the state and chess was no exception.Their match became a symbolic battle for leadership in the Cold War. Here you had the Soviets who had dominated chess for decades on the one hand, and the lone, individualist Fischer on the other. Spassky was complicated. A Russian patriot, he was no Soviet one. He loved the game and admired Fischer who hated everyone and was the archetypal loner with no admirable qualities.The authors could not get an interview with Fischer who was notoriously devoted to his privacy so the reader might sometimes feel as if the book is mostly about Spassky and the Russian perspective since they were quite willing to be interviewed. That's OK. Fischer’s erratic and paranoid behavior make him less prone to analysis.Whatever else you say about Fischer, he was a tormented soul one cannot help but feel sorry for. He was often derided and celebrated. In the end he must have been extremely lonely and he died alone and embittered, a prisoner to his genius. I remember the extraordinary attention surrounding the match which probably did more to elevate the popularity of chess than anything before.Political science junkies and chess fanatics will love this book. Nicely read by Sam Tsoutsouvas.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chances are, if you know anything about chess history, you've heard about this match, where the lone American star triumphs over the big Soviet chess machine to take the world championship. Fischer has his advocates as the best player ever, as well, and this was his crowning moment, the apex of his career. It's definitely important.Here, though, it seems that the received story doesn't get the full picture, and that's the point of the book: to draw out the rest of the details and reframe the story, as many history books aim to do. In this case, it's not just an intellectual exercise, as the availability of documents and interviews with people from the Soviet side, along with Freedom of Information Act documents for the American, really does add a lot to the story, and does make it come across differently. I knew Fischer was nuts, but I didn't realize to what degree; Spassky, the champ, turned out to be a lot more complex, thoughtful, and interesting than I thought. He viewed himself as a Russian, and not a Soviet, patriot, and the implication that has on the course of the process were surprising for me.So while the basic story was familiar, a lot of the details, and thus the implications, were different, and I enjoyed that. On the minus side, I think they should have at least included the games in an appendix or such, if not in the main text; I realize it wasn't part of the story they were telling, exactly, but they go into enough detail, I'd have liked to see what was going on. Also, while they talk about a lot of the geopolitical stuff and the ramifications of all the hoopla and building of the match and such, it's not always well-organized, and so it feels a bit scattershot sometimes.It's still a fast and interesting read, though, with a lot of interesting characters and insight into how the heights of the chess world work. If you're into chess, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, it'll probably never occur to you to try, anyway. It's a self-selecting book that way.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5To be honest, I have found this book a little bit of a let down.If you are a regular reader here you will know that I have recently resurrected my interest in the game of Chess and this famous World Championship match seemed to be the perfect way to supplement my expanding and widening interest in all facets of the game.But, as I said, I have been disappointed. I found the author to have a plodding, disjointed writing style that doesn’t lend itself well to what is a historic match. Instead of distributing the entertainment evenly throughout he some how manages to take away any excitement that could have been had all together.I know you may be asking ‘How can a Chess match possibly be exciting?’ and I will give you an example of how I think the author gets it wrong. The apparent KGB involvement is hardly mentioned until the very end of the book. Instead of distributing this in relevant places throughout the story, this information is kept for the final chapters as a kind of post-mortem. Maybe it is just me and this really is a great read, but I found it rather dry and lacking in the kind of substance that would have had me plowing through it.I am sure that there are books about this historic event that include a move by move account of the games but it’s a cardinal sin, in my opinion, that none of this was included, not even the key games.All in all a big disappointment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You do not have to be a chess fan to enjoy this book. My knowledge of chess is limited to the names of the pieces and the moves they are allowed to make. So while much of the detail of the games was over my head, the intrege of the cold war story and the glimpse into the mind of a brillient but troubled soul was fascinating and well worth the read
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While I've enjoyed chess since I was a child, knew the top players for years, and fancied myself someday becoming like them, I knew nothing of the titanic struggle that is described in this book. Recommended by a friend, I was totally absorbed by the overall narrative as well as Fischer's bizarre antics and gamesmanship. This is a highly entertaining and interesting look into a time when a chess match became far more than a chess match (and I don't believe you have to like chess in order to enjoy this book).
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chances are, if you know anything about chess history, you've heard about this match, where the lone American star triumphs over the big Soviet chess machine to take the world championship. Fischer has his advocates as the best player ever, as well, and this was his crowning moment, the apex of his career. It's definitely important.Here, though, it seems that the received story doesn't get the full picture, and that's the point of the book: to draw out the rest of the details and reframe the story, as many history books aim to do. In this case, it's not just an intellectual exercise, as the availability of documents and interviews with people from the Soviet side, along with Freedom of Information Act documents for the American, really does add a lot to the story, and does make it come across differently. I knew Fischer was nuts, but I didn't realize to what degree; Spassky, the champ, turned out to be a lot more complex, thoughtful, and interesting than I thought. He viewed himself as a Russian, and not a Soviet, patriot, and the implication that has on the course of the process were surprising for me.So while the basic story was familiar, a lot of the details, and thus the implications, were different, and I enjoyed that. On the minus side, I think they should have at least included the games in an appendix or such, if not in the main text; I realize it wasn't part of the story they were telling, exactly, but they go into enough detail, I'd have liked to see what was going on. Also, while they talk about a lot of the geopolitical stuff and the ramifications of all the hoopla and building of the match and such, it's not always well-organized, and so it feels a bit scattershot sometimes.It's still a fast and interesting read, though, with a lot of interesting characters and insight into how the heights of the chess world work. If you're into chess, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, it'll probably never occur to you to try, anyway. It's a self-selecting book that way.