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    Birth of the Chess Queen: A History
    Unavailable
    Birth of the Chess Queen: A History
    Unavailable
    Birth of the Chess Queen: A History
    Ebook312 pages4 hours

    Birth of the Chess Queen: A History

    By Marilyn Yalom

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Marilyn Yalom has written the rare book that illuminates something that always has been dimly perceived but never articulated, in this case that that the power of the chess queen reflects the evolution of female power in the western world.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

    Everyone knows that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few people know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn't until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the king's fierce warrior and protector.

    Birth of the Chess Queen examines the five centuries between the chess queen's timid emergence in the early days of the Holy Roman Empire to her elevation during the reign of Isabel of Castile. Marilyn Yalom, inspired by a handful of surviving medieval chess queens, traces their origin and spread from Spain, Italy, and Germany to France, England, Scandinavia, and Russia. In a lively and engaging historical investigation, Yalom draws parallels between the rise of the chess queen and the ascent of female sovereigns in Europe, presenting a layered, fascinating history of medieval courts and internal struggles for power.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 19, 2009
    ISBN9780061913426
    Unavailable
    Birth of the Chess Queen: A History
    Author

    Marilyn Yalom

    Marilyn Yalom is Senior Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University and author of A History of the Wife (2001), A History of the Breast (1997), Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory (1993), and Maternity, Mortality, and the Literature of Madness (1985). Laura Carstensen is Professor of Psychology and the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University. She has published more than eighty articles and chapters on life-span development, marriage, and emotion.

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    Reviews for Birth of the Chess Queen

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      A light history read, perhaps too light. Of interest to me, since I've written a paper before on the topic, and for chess, of course.