Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time
by David Edmonds, John Eidinow

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Edmonds, John Eidinow
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-03
ISBN: 0060510242
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ecco

Book Reviews of Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time

Book Review: The Battles Behind the Scenes of the "Most Notorious Chess Duel in History".
Summary: 4 Stars

"Bobby Fischer Goes to War" revisits the Cold War showdown between Soviet World Chess Champion Boris Spassky and American enfant terrible Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, Iceland in the summer of 1972. Billed by the press as an ideological duel between Western individualism and the Soviet chess machine, the match inspired an unprecedented interest in the game in the U.S. and ultimately rejuvenated the Soviet chess program as well. BBC journalists David Edmonds and John Eidinow propose that the greatest battle was not on the chessboard. This is a chronicle of the drama behind the scenes, among the American and Soviet teams and their Icelandic hosts, that makes the battle on the board look tame.

Background information about the two competitors, their personalities, how they got to this point, and an attempt by the authors to explain how a chess player's mind works bring us up to the negotiations for the World Championship match. If it seemed that getting everyone there was a feat, matters only got worse once the match started. It was to be two months in constant crisis, due mostly to Fischer's unrelenting, bizarre demands. The authors provide a blow-by-blow account of the confrontations on and off the chessboard, as the organizers tried to deal with Fischer, Spassky dealt with the stress, the Soviets with the prospect of losing, and paranoia on both sides that the players were victims of espionage.

"Bobby Fischer Goes to War" is a snapshot of a symbolic event in a particular political climate which, not surprisingly, does not seem to symbolize what it was made to at the time. Boris Spassky was hardly a Soviet loyalist, and Bobby Fischer was a poor representative of the Free World, hated by the U.S. State Department. Yet, these two men at this juncture in the Cold War fought "the most notorious chess duel in history". This is a very readable, engaging account of that event and its cast. I am puzzled, however, that no one suggests that Bobby Fischer suffered from some degree of autism, which, combined with a domineering and self-important personality, explains his behavior. He is demonized a bit too much considering that he clearly had a neurological disorder.

Summary of Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, two men -- the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer -- met in the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, and farce to rival a Marx Brothers film.

Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow, authors of the national bestseller Wittgenstein's Poker, 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 machine that had delivered the world title to the Kremlin for decades. Drawing upon unpublished Soviet and U.S. records, the authors reconstruct the full and incredible saga, one far more poignant and layered than hitherto believed.

Against the backdrop of superpower politics, the authors recount the careers and personalities of Boris Spassky, the product of Stalin's imperium, and Bobby Fischer, a child of post-World War II America, an era of economic boom at home and communist containment abroad. The two men had nothing in common but their gift for chess, and the disparity of their outlook and values conditioned the struggle over the board.

Then there was the match itself, which produced both creative masterpieces and some of the most improbable gaffes in chess history. And finally, there was the dramatic and protracted off-the-board battle -- in corridors and foyers, in back rooms and hotel suites, in Moscow offices and in the White House.

The authors chronicle how Fischer, a manipulative, dysfunctional genius, risked all to seize control of the contest as the organizers maneuvered frantically to save it -- under the eyes of the world's press. They can now tell the inside story of Moscow's response, and the bitter tensions within the Soviet camp as the anxious and frustrated apparatchiks strove to prop up Boris Spassky, the most un-Soviet of their champions -- fun-loving, sensitive, and a free spirit. Edmonds and Eidinow follow this careering, behind-the-scenes confrontation to its climax: a clash that displayed the cultural differences between the dynamic, media-savvy representatives of the West and the baffled, impotent Soviets. Try as they might, even the KGB couldn't help.

A mesmerizing narrative of brilliance and triumph, 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.

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