Bobby Fischer Goes to War

How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match

By: David Edmonds, John Eidinow

Narrated by: Sam Tsoutsouvas

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, two men, the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer, met in the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, 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, authors of the national best seller Wittgenstein's Poker, have set out to re-examine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine, a machine that had delivered the world title to the Kremlin for decades. Drawing upon unpublished Soviet and US records, the authors reconstruct the full and incredible saga, one far more poignant and layered than hitherto believed.

Against the backdrop of superpower politics, the authors recount the careers and personalities of Boris Spassky, the product of Stalin's imperium, and Bobby Fischer, a child of post-World War II America, an era of economic boom at home and communist containment abroad. The two men had nothing in common but their gift for chess, and the disparity of their outlook and values conditioned the struggle over the board.

Then there was the match itself, which produced both creative masterpieces and some of the most improbable gaffes in chess history. And finally, there was the dramatic and protracted off-the-board battle, in corridors and foyers, in back rooms and hotel suites, in Moscow offices and in the White House.

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.

©2004 David Edmonds and John Eidinow (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Tsoutsouvas turns in a steady, suitably understated performance of this eminently engrossing account of the 1972 world championship chess match." (Publishers Weekly)

"Tsoutsouvas...manages to keep it light and play the humor while laying back the more sensational passages. His handsome, barrel-chested voice is a delight to listen to." (AudioFile)