Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine (P.S.) 
In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, the Soviet world chess champion, Boris Spassky,and his American challenger, Bobby Fischer, met in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown, played against the backdrop of superpower politics, 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 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 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.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.Reviews
Fischer is well known as a brilliant, but troubled, AMERICAN player who bullied his way to get whatever he wanted. He won the World championship, then essentially disappeared. I have to wonder what his life would have been like had he been born in the Soviet Union with it's emphasis on finding, developing, and celebrating chess prodigies.
The authors not only captured the essential elements of the decisive games that led to Fischer's stunning victory, but more importantly, they also did a masterful job of situating the meaning of the match in the political context of the times. Their parallel overlaying of the times with the events going on in Iceland, left us with an enduring picture of the tension of those troubled times, demonstrating how a single chess match managed to relieve much of it, if only for a brief spell.
In the hands of these very skilled writers, a chess match became more than just a report on the World Championship, it became a metaphor of the Cold War: The clash in Iceland was as much a battle of ideas, political systems and ideologies as it was a parlor game waged with great skill, tension, and tenacity across a wooden board of 64 squares.
Edmonds and Eidinow brought it all alive in grand, almost epic fashion -- from the humble beginnings of the players, and the idyllic surroundings in Reykjavik, to a resounding crescendo of fireworks at the last game of the grand finale in Iceland. Through this book, we are not just eye witnesses to history in the making, we are made to feel that we are a vicarious part of it!
For chess lovers everywhere, this is the book to read if you want to know about the game, the particpants, the politics, the ideosyncracies and emotional ups-and-downs of the participants, as well as the events in the background in Reykjavik. A great read FIVE STARS!