Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds

“Outstanding….The definitive account of this historic struggle” Nigel Short, British Chess Champion.

As the authors reveal, when Spassky began to lose, the KGB decided to step in. But in 1972 along came the American, Bobby Fischer: insolent, arrogant, abusive, vain, greedy, vulgar, bigoted, paranoid and obsessive – and apparently unstoppable.Īgainst him was Boris Spassky: complex, sensitive, the most un-Soviet of champions. Evidence, according to Moscow, of the superiority of the Soviet system. Eidinow) details the occasion when Bobby Fischer met Boris Spassky in one of the most thrilling and politically charged chess matches of all time.įor decades, the USSR had dominated world chess.

“Marvellous….” William Jefferson Clintonīobby Fischer Goes To War(written with J.

“I read it like a detective story, in 10 hours, almost without looking up from the book” Mario Vargas Llosa.

“One of the year’s most entertaining and intellectually rich books” Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review.

“Engrossing – The clash between Wittgenstein and Popper has the glamour of a small epic” Los Angeles Times.

“A meaty, exceedingly well researched, and engaging book…A marvel of passionate journalism.” San Francisco Chronicle.

“Most stylish book of the year” The Spectator.

“Nothing but pleasure…” Philip Howard, The Times.

“a terrific book, a fugue like account of everything we know and don’t know about a ten-minute squabble between two great and ornery Austrian-Anglo-Jewish philosophers” Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker.

“The authors make the meeting of Popper and Wittgenstein seem as fateful as that between the iceberg and the Titanic” Time Magazine.

The authors’ ingenuity is way beyond ordinary.” The New York Times

“An enthralling reconstruction of the episode.

“An excellent piece of philosophical journalism” The Financial Times.

“The authors do a brilliant job” The Independent.

“A fast-paced, engaging and very funny story” Sunday Herald.

“An entertaining and informative book” Philip Hensher, The Observer.

“Informative, wonderfully readable and often very funny” Joyce Carol Oates.

“A wonderful account of an extraordinary confrontation…nothing but pleasure” The Times.

“Edmonds and Eidinow have a good story to tell and they tell it wonderfully well” John Banville, Irish Times.

“Excellent…” Simon Blackburn, The Sunday Times.

Almost immediately, rumours started to spread around the world that the two philosophers had come to blows, armed with red-hot pokers. The encounter lasted only ten minutes, and did not go well. On 25 October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. It has been translated into 25 languages.

Eidinow) was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Number One national best seller in the US.

Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds