At the Crossroads of Chess History On March 24, 1946, the fourth world chess champion, Alexander Alekhine, passed away. He was the first – and still the only – champion to die while holding the title. To select a new champion, a powerful quintuple round-robin was held in The Hague and Moscow. The five strongest players of the era, including one former world champion, two future world champions, and two perennial contenders, took part in a grueling two-month, 25-round tournament. “The match-tournament of 1948 in The Hague and Moscow was one of the most important events in the history of chess. It produced a new world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, and it was also the start of a new era in which the championship would be regulated by FIDE by means of an intricate system of qualification tournaments that would function with only small changes for decades.” (From the Foreword by Hans Ree) Max Euwe, the fifth world champion, wrote a splendid account of this historic event. It includes a review of all previous encounters between the participants, background information, as well as all the games of the tournament, deeply annotated by Euwe. This fascinating account is finally available in English. You are invited to follow Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Sam Reshevsky, Paul Keres and Max Euwe as they battle for the title and the chess world starts its journey through the post-World War II era and the beginning of the Soviet hegemony.

“Chess, easy game!” – Miguel el Grande Among major chess figures of the 20th century, few stand out more than Miguel Najdorf. One of the world’s best players for decades, he was also one of the most active and colorful. And his life, both at the chessboard and away from it, was rich in experience, both joyful and deeply painful. In this biography, Najdorf’s daughter Liliana paints an intimate portrait of her larger-than life father. She writes about him, warts and all, showing us her father as a man both greatly talented and deeply flawed, a man at once loving and rage-prone, noble and petty, generous and selfish, jovial but despotic, earthy but vain, exuberant yet deeply sad. A genius who could conduct 40 blindfold games simultaneously and memorize long strings of random numbers, yet forgot where he parked his car. For the English-language edition, Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman has prepared a selection of annotated games and an in-depth foreword. These are complemented nicely by several historical essays, while many photographs round out this engrossing biography of one of the world’s most fascinating chessplayers of the 20th century.

In the Cold War battle for hearts and minds Britain was the first country to formulate a coordinated global response to communist propaganda. In January 1948, the British government launched a new propaganda policy designed to 'oppose the inroads of communism' by taking the offensive against it.' A small section in the Foreign Office, the innocuously titled Information Research Department (IRD), was established to collate information on communist policy, tactics and propaganda, and coordinate the discreet dissemination of counter-propaganda to opinion formers at home and abroad.

World War II explores the elements of the war in broadly chronological order, not just on the battlefields but also on home fronts around the world.

A revealing reassessment of the American government's position towards Indonesia's struggle for independence.

In many 1.d4 openings, Black has trouble getting his bishop on c8 into play. Former Russian Chess Champion Alexey Bezgodov presents a radical solution to this nagging problem; liberate your bishop right away and put it on f5 on the second move! Play 2...Bf5! against either 2.c4 or 2.Nf3 will surprise your opponent and is also a great way to support your development, because the bishop takes control of the important square e4. If White does not immediately take decisive action, then within a move or two he can relinquish any hopes on an opening advantage. Alexey Bezgodov has found some great antidotes to White's most dangerous reactions in sharp and attractive lines. To test your understanding of his system he has included more than 100 exercises. After studying the fresh ideas and the clear explanations presented in The Liberated Bishop Defence chess players of almost every strength will enjoy the flexibility of a surprising, effective and universal weapon against 1.d4.