An illuminating book that both introduces and critiques an often overlooked art form.
A nonfiction work explores society and culture through the lens of tabletop games.
Board games have undergone a resurgence in recent years—perhaps partly, debut author Moriarity argues, as a rejection of the ubiquity of digital entertainment—but they have been with us for centuries. They often replicate some aspect of real life: war, wealth accumulation, resource management. In this way, they provide an intriguing mirror of the society in which they are created. “This is not a book of strategy tips or game reviews,” writes Moriarity at the beginning of this volume. “It is about the things games can teach us about ourselves. Each chapter focuses on one or two game titles…and draws out a revealed lesson in history, psychology, philosophy, society or culture.” Moriarity, a gamer-turned-writer, and Kay (Among the Truthers, 2017, etc.), a writer-turned-gamer, take turns, chapter by chapter, pulling at those threads that they find most interesting. Kay uses Settlers of Catan—the first European title to become highly popular in the United States—to examine how European board games in the postwar years tended to focus on peaceful, creative themes in contrast to the conflict- and competition-driven American ones like Risk. Moriarity reveals how The Game of Life—the 1960 reimagining of Milton Bradley’s original 1860 game The Checkered Game of Life—dispensed with its predecessor’s concept of moral choice and replaced it with a deterministic quest to gain material wealth. In addition to providing a window into society, games offer players an opportunity to learn (sometimes unwittingly) about other segments of society. Kay discovers how two games—Greenland and 1812: The Invasion of Canada—made him think about and even identify with different cultures. Moriarity (in a chapter called “Horrible People”) confronts her prejudices about the sort of people who love Cards Against Humanity. Kay and Moriarity are both skilled writers and elucidators, and their voices are distinct enough to provide the book with a pleasing yin and yang. Their dueling chapters on Monopoly skillfully illustrate their various interests. Kay comments on how the game’s poor-get-poorer, rich-get-richer mechanic is “characteristic of a certain dynamic observed in nature, engineering, and human relationships, one that mathematicians sometimes describe as unstable equilibrium.” Moriarity, meanwhile, focuses on the psychological benefits—and worsened gameplay—of the popular but noncanonical Stupid Free Parking Rule: “I am using the word ‘rule’ in the loosest possible sense because there is, in fact, no such rule—which is a big part of the problem.” The authors include a mix of classic titles that most readers will know (Scattergories, Scrabble, Dungeons & Dragons), with more-complex offerings from the tabletop world (Pandemic, Dead of Winter, Legend of the Five Rings). It’s a far more perceptive and intriguing book than it appears at first blush, particularly for those readers who have never thought of games as an artistic medium—at least not one that comments on society. Regular gamers will enjoy these takes on familiar titles. And readers just discovering the tabletop renaissance will likely want to play some of these games themselves.
An illuminating book that both introduces and critiques an often overlooked art form.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-9994395-4-5
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Sutherland House
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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