The Billion Dollar Monopoly (r) Swindle
Author: Ralph Anspach
List Price: $22.99
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ISBN: 0738831395
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (10 October, 2000)
Sales Rank: 609,783
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Funny, engaging, true-life detective-style history.
I have read this book a few times because there is so much in it and I didn't want to forget the details. Ralph Anspach has a gift for telling a story in a way that puts you right in the middle of the action. You get to read about how an Economics Professor invented a board game and all the trials he went through to get it to market. Then you read how Parker Brothers could not stand this harmless little game and did everything they could to ban it from being sold. In self-defense, Ralph Anspach looked into the real history of the game, meeting the people and visiting the places where monopoly was invented years before it's claimed "invention" by Charles Darrow in 1935. The invention fraud pales in comparison to the cover-up that Parker Brothers carried out in order to line their pockets and monopolize the board game industry - and you, the consumer, got to pay for it in higher prices and inferior products. As the battle rages on we find Kenneth Starr in his pre-Lewinski days and some of America's biggest companies gang-up to rid the world of Anti-Monopoly once-and-for-all. How did this immigrant professor become such a threat to big business capitalism? The answers are masterfully revealed in this book that will keep you smiling and reading all through the night. Scandal, money-hungry, bloodthirsty business, a monopoly detective and more...it's all here.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Excellent revelations on the Monopoly invention cover-up
Any fan of the Monopoly game or one of the many versions of the game available today will be intrigued by the origin of this fantastic game as told by Anspach through his investigations. The David vs. Goliath battle with the "Microsofts" of the Toy industry, the various owners of Parker Brothers through to Hasbro, Inc. (the current owners), shows how Monopoly is not just their game, but their mission statement and general business goal. Required reading for anyone who ever read The Monopoly Book or The Monopoly Companion.
Rating: 5 out of 5
You'll never see Monopoly the same again
This is a wonderful tale of Goliath from David's point of view -- you'll be amazed at what an American business will do to defend its false patent, and it would be downright unbelievable in fiction that a judge would do what a judge actually did -- but you have to believe it because it's there in the court records. Written with self-effacing humor, this book is a fast and pleasurable read. Unfortunately there's quite a lot of misplaced punctuation (especially quotation marks) that distract from the flow -- but aside from that I find no flaws worth mentioning. Recommended to everyone who's ever played Monopoly (so you can find out what the game you've been playing is *really* about).
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