Eric G. (guswrites) reviewed Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game--and How It Got That Way on + 28 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Love Monopoly and love pop culture history, so I was anxious to read this treatment of the history of America's favorite game. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to its promise.
Here's the core problem - the actual Monopoly content probably only fills about 75 pages. The rest of the text is the author's simplistic and superficial efforts at summarizing the American history that surrounded each decade of the game's life. So, instead of reading about Monopoly, I'm reading about FDR's New Deal and the author's thoughts on World War II.
He's no historian and his historical treatments are elementary-school level. By the 1960s, I was skimming over all his useless verbiage and trying (desperately) to find more on the game itself. The back cover teases with interesting Monopoly facts, but trivia of that ilk is given short shrift in the book.
Finally, he's just not a particularly good writer, using painful analogies and awkward prose. I'm not saying don't read it, especially if you have a high level of interest in the topic, but don't expect too much.
Here's the core problem - the actual Monopoly content probably only fills about 75 pages. The rest of the text is the author's simplistic and superficial efforts at summarizing the American history that surrounded each decade of the game's life. So, instead of reading about Monopoly, I'm reading about FDR's New Deal and the author's thoughts on World War II.
He's no historian and his historical treatments are elementary-school level. By the 1960s, I was skimming over all his useless verbiage and trying (desperately) to find more on the game itself. The back cover teases with interesting Monopoly facts, but trivia of that ilk is given short shrift in the book.
Finally, he's just not a particularly good writer, using painful analogies and awkward prose. I'm not saying don't read it, especially if you have a high level of interest in the topic, but don't expect too much.
