Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations

by Robert Charles Bell

There are many authoritative books on card games and chess, but only a handful on the dozens of other games known to mankind. This excellent handbook by R. C. Bell is a basic reference to board and table games from around the world, and one of the two or three finest books ever written on the subject. Originally published in two volumes in the 1960's, it is now available for the first time in a corrected, one-volume edition.
Mr. Bell's encyclopedic work provides the rules and methods of play for 182 different Ma-jong, Hazard, Wei-ch'I (Go), backgammon, Wari, Continental draughts, Pachisi, Japanese chess, Bidou, Domino Loo, Cribbage, and many others. Volume one is divided into chapters devoted to race games, war games, games of position, Mancala games, dice games, and domino games; volume two follows the same arrangement and then proceeds to games with numbers, card games requiring boards, and games requiring manual dexterity. Additional information is furnished on making boards and pieces, and on gaming-counters.
Game players, toymakers, and historians of culture will welcome this guided tour of games from Egypt, Meso-America, the Orient, India, Persia, Rome, Africa, Victorian England, and many other societies. Over 300 illustrations, both photographs and line drawings, add an illuminating counterpoint to the text.

Genres: Games, Nonfiction, History, Reference, Historical, Game Design

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Amar Pai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading right now about Chaturaji, ancient Indian predecessor to chess. 500 A.D. The bones of chess are there, but there's a lot of complicated extra rules, dice, 4 players, gambling... dross that got stripped away.

I like that there's some Oxford academic out there who dedicated his life to the study of ancient board games. R. C. Bell, M.B., F.R.C.S., shine on you crazy diamond.

[Geoffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide survey of board and card games from antiquity to the modern era, from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Most of the scholarship comes at least second hand, but the bibliography is top-notch.... Even if many of the sources are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A definite jumping-off point for folks interested in historical board games, but not one up to modern rigour.

[David Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considered a classic text with amazing deep research on traditional board games. I guess you don't read this as much as dive in to read up on something that takes your interest at the time. An excellent resource on traditional board games, but not for me something you would sit down and read. Worth keeping. (Legacy review still relevant).

[^ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable and easy to follow; the illustrations are excellent and significantly add to the text. The inventiveness of mankind is both awesome and inspiring. It has certainly never before occurred to me to play diagonal English draughts, where the opening opposing positions are laid out from each player's right corner, along the three black square diagonals, in lines of 2,4,and 6 pieces, the remaining black diagonal of 8 squares between the opponents being left empty

I especially enjoyed the historical notes given for a number of games, and biographies of notable researchers/experts in the field of board games.

I do like the author's practical outlook. He doesn't give rules for modern Chess, because, as he sensibly points out, these are easily obtainable elsewhere.

[Micaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book for a history project researching the games played in the Middle Ages, and I was not disappointed. Did you know chess used to be a game for four players, with dice? Did you know that Byzantine Emperor Zeno had such a spectacularly unlucky game of Tabula (backgammon) that the losing turn was recorded for posterity? This book gives the known histories of these games and many more, dividing games into families actually, and it also provides a description of gameplay. I actually learned how to play several of these games and taught the rest of the family. Great book, great resource.