The Games We Played

This 159-page book is a pictorial of boards and a few playing pieces from games in the New York Historical Society's collection. Really a coffee table book, there are very short descriptions of the games. From the back cover: The Games We Played: The Golden Age of Board and Table Games brings together more than one hundred eye-catching examples of America's most spectacular games. A veritable encyclopedia of late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century games, this playful visual survey provides a revealing look at the social values and preoccupations of the culture that produced them. Organized around themes such as moral education, city life, sports, war, and travel, this book casts its entertaining subject matter in a fascinating new light, for avid and occasional game players alike.