{"id":2467,"date":"2016-03-28T20:12:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=2467"},"modified":"2016-03-28T20:12:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:12:31","slug":"book-log-20-the-monopolists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=2467","title":{"rendered":"Book Log #20: The Monopolists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World&#8217;s Favorite Board Game<\/em> by Mary Pilon [Little Shop of Stories, $17.00?]<\/p>\n<p>Quite a fascinating piece of non-fiction reporting, recommended by a Little Shop of Stories employee.<\/p>\n<p><em>Monopoly<\/em>, like <em>Risk<\/em>, is one of the games I kind of feel bad about winning.  Running everybody else out of business or violently overthrowing a nation doesn&#8217;t have the feel-good win of, say, winning a footrace or a basketball game, for some reason.<\/p>\n<p>I guess that feeling has its roots in the true inventor of the game, Lizzie Magie, a turn of the (last) century activist who was trying to advocate for a single-tax system, which (and I&#8217;m not really clear on how) would help prevent wealth inequalities. <\/p>\n<p>The rest of the story is full of interesting twists and turns, and a view into a different era, where board games were gaining popularity thanks to the advent of greater leisure time.<\/p>\n<p>Well written and interesting, definitely worth the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World&#8217;s Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon [Little Shop of Stories, $17.00?] Quite a fascinating piece of non-fiction reporting, recommended by a Little Shop of Stories employee. Monopoly, like Risk, is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=2467\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481,513,511],"tags":[509],"class_list":["post-2467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-log","category-books","category-little-shop-of-stories","tag-book-log-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}