This large and magnificent work of art is both an interpretive history of Soviet chess from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and a record of the most interesting games played. The text traces the phenomenal growth of chess from the Revolutionary days to the devastations of World War II, and then from the Golden Age of Soviet-dominated chess in the 1950s to the challenge of Bobby Fischer and the quest to find his Soviet match. Included are 249 games, each with a diagram; most are annotated and many have never before been published outside the Soviet Union. The text is augmented by photographs and includes 63 tournament and match scoretables. Also included are a bibliography, an appendix of records achieved in Soviet national championships, two indexes of openings, and an index of players and opponents.

White King and Red Queen is the story of chess, and how it was inexorably connected to the rise and fall of Soviet Communism. Daniel Johnson's landmark book begins with the early days of revolutionary activity in central Europe, when the chessboard was the province of exiled intellectuals and games were confined to coffee houses. When the Bolsheviks moved to the Kremlin after the 1917 revolution, they took chess with them. Although Lenin himself was a keen player, it was Nikolai Krylenko, creator of the Red Army, who persuaded the Kremlin to adopt chess as a symbol of Soviet power. From then on, competitors were obliged to play for the state, or risk imprisonment and exile.

How does one determine the "best" chess games? What one may see as brilliant, another may see as simply necessary. Like some art lovers, chess fans claim that they know a good game when they see it, and that they know better from good. But "best"? How is this articulated? This book, itself a work of art, is brought together by the use of five criteria: the overall aesthetics (clever and relentless are insufficient qualities); the originality (e.g., not yet another white knight sacrifice in a Sicilian); the level of opposition (the loser played very well); the soundness (i.e., are the moves refutable with perfect play?), accuracy (few of the moves are second-best), and difficulty (the winner overcame major obstacles) of the game; and finally the overall breadth and depth (one wants a series of sparkling ideas, with no dry patches). The 100 best games were taken from an initial field of about 7,000 played from 1900 through 1999 that had already gained some attention in magazines, books and periodicals. Three hundred games were then selected that appeared to have features consistent with the criteria. The 300 games were evaluated with scores-points given for each category of criteria. The games were then ranked, one to 100, by the score they received. No attempt was made to balance the selection according to period, nationality of players or opening. Also included is a chapter on the most overrated games of the twentieth century and one on games that would have made the list if... Includes 335 diagrams, an index of players and an index of openings by ECO codes.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.