Philip E. Orbanes
Författare till The Monopoly Companion
Om författaren
Philip E. Orbanes is currently president of the specialty games company Winning Moves.
Verk av Philip E. Orbanes
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Namn enligt folkbokföringen
- Philip Edward Obranes
- Födelsedag
- 1947-06-01
- Kön
- male
- Nationalitet
- USA
- Födelseort
- Somers Point, New Jersey, USA
- Bostadsorter
- Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA
- Utbildning
- Case Institute of Technology (BS l Organizational Science)
- Yrken
- Executive and inventer, toy industry
- Relationer
- Anna (wife)
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Listor
Du skulle kanske också gilla
Statistik
- Verk
- 6
- Medlemmar
- 319
- Popularitet
- #74,135
- Betyg
- 3.6
- Recensioner
- 8
- ISBN
- 13
- Språk
- 1
And it is better. At least somewhat.
I think Orbanes himself was aware of the flaw in The Game Makers because here, he works actively to avoid backing himself into the same corner. In Monopoly, he positions each chapter around a specific figure or figures - sometimes obvious motivators like Elizabeth Magie (who invented the game's progenitor, The Landlord's Game), Charles Darrow (who sold his version to Parker Bros.), or George S. Parker, and sometimes indirect participants like Ronald Reagan or the GIs returning from WWII. This allows him to tell a whole series of "mini-stories" that, when put together, lead up to a cultural history of Monopoly.
To be fair, the first half of the book is still the most interesting. Orbanes is able to go far more into depth about Elizabeth Magie and the Quaker communities that kept The Landlord's Game going than he was in The Game Makers, and that adds considerably more dimension to the famous story. He is also able to contextualize the famed story of the Monopoly sets sent to POWs with files and maps inside from the perspective of Victor and Norman Watson, the father/son leaders of Waddingtons (the British licensee of the game). Along the way we get to see photos of many of the handmade editions of both The Landlord's Game and Monopoly that led to the game we know so well today - although, sadly, not in color, the one true step down from The Game Makers.
Following the General Mills buyout of Parker Brothers in 1968, the book shifts from the game's origin and initial cultural impact to its existence as a legacy property, focusing on the development of Monopoly tournaments, the production of foreign, luxury and modified editions, and finally, the people who are now Monopoly historians. This material will probably be of lesser interest to most of the book's audience, but Orbanes is still able to form meaningful stories out of most of it, especially his own key involvement in judging tournaments. Sadly, the final chapter - focusing on collectors and historians - is now pretty much totally out of date (15 years after publication), and the various websites Orbanes recommends are now defunct.
The slim book (shorter than 200 pages of narrative) includes George S. Parker's 1936 rules for Monopoly, Elizabeth Magie's 1904 and revised 1924 rules for The Landlord's Game, and the rules for 1913's Br'er Fox and Br'er Rabbit (a rare UK publication of The Landlord's Game). There are also checklists of various Monopoly and USAopoly editions, some of which have obviously been superseded.
The book is obviously recommended for any Monopoly or classic board games buff, but also for those interested in the cultural history of play in the 20th century, generally. Orbanes does a lot of work to tie the development and staying power of Monopoly to the public perception of capitalism in the United States, so it may also be of interest to scholars of cultural economics.… (mer)