Emanuel Lasker: A Reader - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1949859002 ISBN 13: 9781949859003

Publisher: Russell Enterprises, Inc., 2019

Synopsis

A Zeal to Understand

“I do not accept an absolute limit to my knowledge. I have a zeal to understand that refuses to die.” ― Emanuel Lasker, 1919

Among great chess masters, Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) stands unique for the depth and broad scope of his intellect. Most of the game's world champions have been single-mindedly chess-obsessed, with few outside interests. Lasker, however, was very much a polymath, making major contributions to mathematics and philosophy, plus writing on many other subjects: science, politics, economics, sociology, board games other than chess, etc. All while retaining his chess crown for nearly 27 years, and ranking among the world's top ten for over four decades.

In this book you get a unique look at Lasker himself – both intellectually and emotionally – through a wide-ranging sampling of his works, with an emphasis on chess but also including much on other topics. A partial list:

• Lasker's magazine London Chess Fortnightly (1892-93).
• The Hastings 1895 tournament book.
• Common Sense in Chess (1896).
• Lasker's Chess Magazine (1904-1909).
• A memorial tribute to Pillsbury, from The Chess Player's Scrapbook (1906).
• Full coverage of the 1907 Lasker-Marshall and 1908 Lasker-Tarrasch World Championship matches.
• The St. Petersburg 1909 tournament book.
• Lasker's and Capablanca's books on their 1921 title match.
• The discussion of the theory of Steinitz from Lasker's Manual of Chess.
• An examination of Lasker's endgame instruction and studies by GM Karsten Müller.
• Summaries of and extensive excerpts from two of Lasker's philosophical works, Struggle (1907) and Die Philosophie des Unvollendbar (The Philosophy of the Unattainable, 1919), and his forgotten sociological rarity, The Community of the Future (1940).
• A discussion of Lasker's mathematical works by Dr. Ingo Althofer of Jena University.
• A look at Lasca, a checkers-like game invented by Lasker.

You are invited to enter the mind of this wide-ranging, insightful and outspoken intellect. Lasker was not always right, any more than he always won at the chess board, but he was always interesting.

About the Editor

Taylor Kingston has been a chess enthusiast since his teens. He holds a Class A over-the-board USCF rating, and was a correspondence master in the 1980s, but his greatest love is the game's history. His historical articles have appeared in Chess Life, New In Chess, Inside Chess, Kingpin among others.

About this title

About the Author

Taylor Kingston has been a chess enthusiast since his teens. He holds a Class A over-the-board USCF rating, and was a correspondence master in the 1980s, but his greatest love is the game's history. His historical articles have appeared in Chess Life, New In Chess, Inside Chess, Kingpin, and the web-site www.ChessCafe.com. He has edited numerous books for Russell Enterprises, including the 21st-century edition of Lasker's Manual of Chess.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

No Lasker reader would be complete without something from Lasker's Manual of Chess. First published in German in 1926, then going through many reprintings in English and other languages, the Manual was Lasker's most mature and comprehensive chess work, retaining its high instructive value to this day. Our excerpt here deals with one of its more historical and philosophical sections, in which Lasker discussed the contributions to chess theory of Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900), the man who preceded him as World Champion. Lasker believed that Steinitz had been badly misunderstood in his time, and felt a responsibility to rectify this. Lasker supported his main points with various illustrative games, but most of those have been omitted here, to focus on his general exposition of the theory of Steinitz. Such omissions are indicated by ellipses. This excerpt comes from pages 153-183 of the 2008 Russell Enterprises edition.

When Paul Morphy, despairing of life, re­nounced chess, Caïssa fell into deep mourning and into dreary thoughts. To the masters who had come to ask her for a smile she listened absent‑mindedly, as a mother would to her children after her favorite had died. Therefore, the games of the masters of that period are planless; the great models of the past are known, and the masters try to follow them and to equal them, but they do not succeed. The masters give themselves over to reflec­tion. One of them reflects a long time and intensely on Paul Morphy, and grate­fully Caïssa encourages him; and the greatest land­mark in the history of chess is reached: William Stein­itz announces the principles of strategy, the result of in­spired thought and imagin­ation.

Principles, though dwel­ling in the realm of thought, are rooted in life. There are so many thoughts which have no roots and these are more glittering and more seductive than the sound ones. Therefore, in order to distinguish between the true and the false principles, Steinitz had to dig deep to lay bare the roots of the art possessed by Morphy. And when Steinitz after hard work had bared these roots, he said to the world: Here is the idea of chess which has given vitality to the game since its invention in the centuries long past. Listen to me and do not judge rashly, for it is some­thing great, and it over­powers me.

The world did not listen but mocked at him. How should this insignificant-looking person have dis­covered anything great? ...

Edition details

• Publisher: Russell Enterprises, Inc.
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1949859002
• ISBN 13: 9781949859003
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Kingston Taylor