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Article: Queenly Power Games: When Chess Queens and Female Rulers Held Sway.("Birth of a Chess Queen: A History")(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The World and I
- Article date:
- September 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
BIRTH OF THE CHESS QUEEN: A HISTORY
Marilyn Yalom
Harper Collins
$24.95, 304 pages, illus.
Chess dates from the sixth century. But the pieces and rules have changed. Perhaps most significant is the emergence of the queen, the game's most powerful piece.
How did this happen? Marilyn Yalom assumes it came from more than a desire to speed up the game. Yalom, who has often written from a feminist perspective, contends: "While there were few women rulers before the fifteenth century whose names can be definitely linked to the game, the reality of female rule was ...