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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest piece of chess literature ever?, 16 Oct 2000
By A Customer
Reti, who gave his name to one of the soundest yet quixotic openings in chess, wrote two masterpieces. This is the earlier, and some would say the greater ... It is a joy and a pleasure to read. Written in those almost forgotten days of 1923, it looks back to the great players of two centuries ago to trace the roots of cataclysmic ideas. Yet "Modern Ideas" is more than simply a history book. It was the igniter of a whole new way of looking at chess. Dr Tartakower may have been the master who first coined the phrase "Hypermodern", but it was Reti, in this very book, who breathed life and thought and imagination into the movement. Nothing has not changed chess so much since. Greater, as a piece of creative writing, than even the magnificent "My System" by Aron Nimzowitsch, which was published 2 short years later, this is a true work of literary genius. So, buy this book, pour a glass of fine chilled white wine, and imagine that you are sitting outside a cafe in Vienna in the sort of crisp, sunny atmosphere of early spring or late Autumn of 75 years ago. Start to read, only the soulless will be disappointed.
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