Marilyn Yalom’s book “Birth of the Chess Queen” was a fascinating read, especially since I am such a huge fan of medieval European history and this book focused on a lot of major events or just cool and interesting events for a short time and then moved on to the next event, of course with the common theme of women in positions of power and or chess. Unfortunately, besides that fact that I had a lot of fun reading this book and examining people that the book talked about I don’t see too much to discuss about this book. Fortunately there are many historical moments discussed in the book that piqued my interest.

An early point of the book is the transition from the piece named Vizier to Queen as chess was spread throughout Europe. I think that Yalom was pointing out that as chess went from the east where it was played by military people to Europe where it became more of a game for the court chess also made the transition from Vizier to Queen which reflected the way that the new society changed the game and placed more importance on certain pieces. It was, after all, around this time that the bishop and rook became pieces since elephants and chariots wouldn’t have been very relatable to Europeans. But since this wasn’t intended to be the focus of her book she didn’t really dawdle on that fact too much, also the fact that a society shapes things that come from foreign places to better fit their own practices isn’t too strange of an idea in the first place and most people could accept something like that.

Another point I found interesting from Yalom’s book was the fact that as the queen became a more powerful chess piece she only picked up moves from the rook and the bishop, not the knight. Someone that Yalom quoted in the book said that the queen wasn’t given the knight’s movement because knights were intrinsically linked to war, specifically being on the battlefield and queens could at most be offering advice about the war and gaining support for the war (such as Isabella of Castile). It is sad that women were kicked out of the war effort on the field but the effect that society had on chess pieces, especially down to details like that, is really fascinating especially since in 2013 the ban on women serving in the front lines was repealed thus allowing them fulfil that position of the “knight” in modern times. I doubt that any change to chess will come, especially since it has had the established rules for so long, but I wonder if women were allowed to serve in the front lines earlier in history if the queen would also have the movement option of the knight as well.