Table of Contents
Introduction: The Birth of a New Gaming Era 1
1 Tomb Raiders and the Lost Games of the Ancients: What board games reveal about our ancestors 9
2 Chess: The "Mad Queen's Game": How the chessboard came to embody centuries of world history 19
3 Backgammon: The Favored Game of International Pace-Setters and Ancient Emperors: How backgammon because the most glamorous game of the 1970s 34
4 The Game of Life: A Journey to the Uniquely American Day of Reckoning: What the Game of Life tells us about the development of U.S. society 52
5 The Forgotten Message of Monopoly: How Monopoly went from anti-landlord tirade to celebration of cutthroat capitalism 71
6 From Kriegsspiel to Risk: Blood-Soaked and World-Shaping Play: How board games prepared the world for war 89
7 I Spy: How Chess and Monopoly became tools of espionage and propaganda 107
8 Clue's Billion-Dollar Crime Spree: How Clue's very British murders created a world of armchair sleuths 122
9 Scrabble: Words Without Meaning: Why words are meaningless to the best Scrabble players 135
10 Plastic Fantastic: Mouse Trap, Operation, and the Willy Wonka of Toys: How Mouse Trap and Operation took board games into the plastic age 149
11 Sex in a Box: What board games from Twister to Monogamy tell us about sexual attitudes 167
12 Mind Games: Exploring Brains with Board Games: What board games reveal about our minds 179
13 Rise of the Machines: Games That Train Synthetic Brains: How board games have powered the development of artificial intelligence 196
14 Trivial Pursuit: Adults at Play: How Trivial Pursuit broke games out of the toy box 211
15 Pandemics and Terror: Dissecting Geopolitics an Cardboard: What board games teach us about disease, geopolitics, and the War on Terror 224
16 Made in Germany: Catan and the Creation of Modern Board Games: How Germany revitalized board gaming for the twenty-first century 237
References 257
Acknowledgments 279
Index 281
