Grandmaster Ray Keene OBE has enjoyed a career which spans many aspects of chess, including numerous victories in international competitions across five continents, organisation of three world chess championships involving Garry Kasparov, creation of the first ever world championship in any Mind Sport between a human and a computer (Dr Marion Tinsley v Chinook in draughts, London 1992) and the world record authorship of 206 books on Mind Sports, thinking and genius, with translations into sixteen different languages.

Here, Ray adapts forty-one of his columns originally written for The Article and The British Chess Magazine, together with some additional games and illustrations, in which his primary aim has been to connect chess to wider political, scientific and cultural concerns.