A good dungeon crawl: Casual readers won’t make it past the start, but treasures abound for experienced adventurers.
The enduring success of Dungeons & Dragons is one of pop culture’s most inexplicable phenomena. Though tabletop gaming historian Peterson has previously chronicled the D&D origin story, notably in the gorgeous Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana, this book focuses on the game’s creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. When the gregarious and ambitious Gygax and creative but sensitive Arneson launched D&D in 1974, they casually agreed to a 50/50 split of whatever royalties it might generate. In the agreement that they signed with Gygax’s company, TSR, they retained the option to repurchase rights for a paltry amount not to exceed $300 if the game went out of print—a sign of just how little confidence everyone involved had in its success. When D&D sales surprisingly surged and started generating millions in profit, controversy and thorny legal battles ensued. As Gygax and Arneson jousted over credit in print and in court, brothers Brian and Kevin Blume helped Gygax grow and diversify TSR’s business. While subsequent years saw the company thrive despite the game’s unfair association with the “Satanic Panic” of the early 1980s, profligate spending, lack of a cohesive strategy, and rampant nepotism made TSR a case study in corporate mismanagement. Peterson’s in-depth review of legal documents, contracts, and correspondence creates the most insightful account yet of the Gygax-Arneson feud, but the exhaustive level of detail occasionally bogs down the narrative. D&D fans will need to look elsewhere for a crackling account of the game’s evolution, but grognards and business students alike will find something of value.
A good dungeon crawl: Casual readers won’t make it past the start, but treasures abound for experienced adventurers.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-262-54295-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
A clear, useful guide through the current chaotic political landscape.
A sharp explanation of how American politics has become so discordant.
Journalist Klein, co-founder of Vox, formerly of the Washington Post, MSNBC, and Bloomberg, reminds readers that political commentators in the 1950s and ’60s denounced Republicans and Democrats as “tweedledum and tweedledee.” With liberals and conservatives in both parties, they complained, voters lacked a true choice. The author suspects that race played a role, and he capably shows us why and how. For a century after the Civil War, former Confederate states, obsessed with keeping blacks powerless, elected a congressional bloc that “kept the Democratic party less liberal than it otherwise would’ve been, the Republican Party congressionally weaker than it otherwise would’ve been, and stopped the parties from sorting themselves around the deepest political cleavage of the age.” Following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, many white Southern Democrats became Republicans, and the parties turned consistently liberal and conservative. Given a “true choice,” Klein maintains, voters discarded ideology in favor of “identity politics.” Americans, like all humans, cherish their “tribe” and distrust outsiders. Identity was once a preoccupation of minorities, but it has recently attracted white activists and poisoned the national discourse. The author deplores the decline of mass media (network TV, daily newspapers), which could not offend a large audience, and the rise of niche media and internet sites, which tell a small audience only what they want to hear. American observers often joke about European nations that have many parties who vote in lock step. In fact, such parties cooperate to pass legislation. America is the sole system with only two parties, both of which are convinced that the other is not only incompetent (a traditional accusation), but a danger to the nation. So far, calls for drastic action to prevent the apocalypse are confined to social media, fringe activists, and the rhetoric of Trump supporters. Fortunately—according to Klein—Trump is lazy, but future presidents may be more savvy. The author does not conclude this deeply insightful, if dispiriting, analysis by proposing a solution.
A clear, useful guide through the current chaotic political landscape.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0032-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A cleareyed, concise look at current and future affairs offering pertinent points to reflect and debate.
Examining issues both obvious and subtler, Zakaria sets out how and why the world has changed forever. The speed with which the Covid-19 virus spread around the world was shocking, and the fallout has been staggering. In fact, writes the author, “it may well turn out that this viral speck will cause the greatest economic, political, and social damage to humankind since World War II.” The U.S., in particular, was exposed as woefully unprepared, as government leadership failed to deliver a clear, practical message, and the nation’s vaunted medical institutions were caught flat-footed: "Before the pandemic…Americans might have taken solace in the country’s great research facilities or the huge amounts of money spent on health care, while forgetting about the waste, complexity and deeply unequal access that mark it as well." While American leaders wasted months denying the seriousness of Covid-19 and ignoring the advice of medical experts, other countries—e.g., South Korea, New Zealand, and Taiwan—acted swiftly and decisively, underscoring one of the author's main themes and second lesson: "What matters is not the quantity of government but the quality.” Discussing how “markets are not enough,” the author astutely shoots down the myth that throwing money at the problem can fix the situation; as such, he predicts a swing toward more socialist-friendly policies. Zakaria also delves into the significance of the digital economy, the resilience of cities (see the success of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei in suppressing the virus), the deepening of economic inequality around the world, how the pandemic has exacerbated the rift between China and the U.S. (and will continue to do so), and why “people should listen to the experts—and experts should listen to the people."
A cleareyed, concise look at current and future affairs offering pertinent points to reflect and debate.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-393-54213-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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