The Chess Revolution
On sale
23rd October 2025
Price: £12.99
Genre
‘Chess is a staggering invention, if indeed it was invented. Maybe it just evolved. It is still evolving, now faster than ever, and Peter Doggers has traced and tracked its never-ending development with wit, vigour and insight. Nothing artificial about his intelligence’ – Sir Tim Rice
‘An entertaining and instructive overview of a game in the throes of reinvention.’ – Financial Times
How the game of kings became the king of games
Throughout history, chess has inspired writers, painters, filmmakers, musicians, mathematicians and scientists. Yet, despite being 1,500 years old, chess has never been more popular than it is today. How did it become the most prominent game in Western culture?
In this fascinating book, acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers explores chess as a cultural phenomenon from its earliest beginnings in ancient India to its influence on pop culture, the arts and science. He examines its biggest stars and most dramatic moments, the impact of AI, cheating scandals, esports and the online revolution, culminating in the game’s meteoric rise in the digital age leading to a new peak in popularity.
Complete with photographs and illustrations, as well as an appendix in the back with moves from key games, The Chess Revolution is a seminal volume that will captivate every chess fan, from novices to grandmasters.
‘An entertaining and instructive overview of a game in the throes of reinvention.’ – Financial Times
How the game of kings became the king of games
Throughout history, chess has inspired writers, painters, filmmakers, musicians, mathematicians and scientists. Yet, despite being 1,500 years old, chess has never been more popular than it is today. How did it become the most prominent game in Western culture?
In this fascinating book, acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers explores chess as a cultural phenomenon from its earliest beginnings in ancient India to its influence on pop culture, the arts and science. He examines its biggest stars and most dramatic moments, the impact of AI, cheating scandals, esports and the online revolution, culminating in the game’s meteoric rise in the digital age leading to a new peak in popularity.
Complete with photographs and illustrations, as well as an appendix in the back with moves from key games, The Chess Revolution is a seminal volume that will captivate every chess fan, from novices to grandmasters.
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Reviews
Peter Doggers has been covering the chess world as a journalist for almost 20 years, and no one knows more about its culture and controversies than him. Now he has undertaken a fascinating and synoptic survey that looks at the game's glorious past and what he hopes could be an even more storied future. Thanks to the internet, more people are playing and following the game than ever before, Netflix's The Queen's Gambit has triggered a new wave of popular interest, and computers and AI - far from killing the game, as many anticipated - have helped to remake it. Doggers argues forcefully that chess, for so long in danger of being marginalised after the high point of the great Fischer-Spassky world championship match in 1972, is returning to the mainstream and can be a winner again
Doggers is an excellent guide . . . The Chess Revolution provides an entertaining and instructive overview of a game in the throes of reinvention. A decade ago it would have been quite possible to view chess as a fading sport, as its mysteries were solved by computers and its audiences tempted away by video games and other less taxing entertainments. Instead, by embracing a heady mix of technology and globalisation, it has been re-energised - providing a lesson for other human intellectual pursuits far beyond the sixty four squares
The game of chess deserves this book
Chess is a staggering invention, if indeed it was invented. Maybe it just evolved. It is still evolving, now faster than ever, and Peter Doggers has traced and tracked its never-ending development with wit, vigour and insight. Nothing artificial about his intelligence