Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard

"Counterplay explores the inner world of a chess player and examines how we attempt to make meaning from the game and the forms of life that surround it. Desjarlais's personal account skillfully illustrates the absorbing, enchanting, and exacting qualities of chess, while also highlighting the penury, disillusion and pettiness that regretfully permeate the game."—Jonathan Rowson, PhD, Grandmaster and British Chess Champion (2004-2006) "This book is replete with deeply researched and closely observed details, small dramas, intriguing insights, compelling anecdotes and potted biographies—all interwoven with great authorial skill and intelligence. This is a superb introduction to the 'lifeworld' of chess that affords glimpses into the psychology of players and touches on the social and political dimensions of competitive chess. In every chapter, Desjarlais offers alluring suggestions as to what kinds of satisfaction different people find in playing chess."—Michael D. Jackson, author of The Palm at the End of the Mind