{"product_id":"0853975002544","title":"Expressions","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith its origins rooted in one of the \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e’s most emailed stories, \u003ci\u003eThe Monopolists\u003c\/i\u003e is the inside story of how the game of Monopoly came into existence, the heavy embellishment of its provenance by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man’s lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game’s questionable origins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost Americans who play Monopoly think it was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvania man who sold his game to Parker Brothers in 1935 and lived happily ever after on royalties. That story, however, is not exactly true.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRalph Anspach, an economist and refugee of Hitler’s Danzig, unearthed the real story and it traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and to a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie. \u003ci\u003eThe Monopolists\u003c\/i\u003e is in part Anspach’s David-versus-Goliath tale of his 1970s battle against Parker Brothers, one of the most beloved companies of all time. Anspach was a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game, which hailed those who busted up trusts and monopolies instead of those who took control of all the properties. While he and his lawyers researched previous Parker Brothers lawsuits, he accidentally discovered the true history of the game, which began with Magie’s Landlord’s Game. That game was invented more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly and she waged her own war with Parker Brothers to be credited as the real originator of the game. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIronically, the Landlord’s Game, like Anti-Monopoly, was underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today. It isn't surprising that Magie's game was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt’s famed Brain Trust.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore than just a book about board games, \u003ci\u003eThe Monopolists\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates the cutthroat nature of American business over the last century—a social history of American corporate greed that reads like the best detective fiction, told through the real-life winners and losers in the Monopoly wars.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NORTH SOUTH RECORDINGS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47093804466416,"sku":"0853975002544","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/0853975002544_p0.jpg?v=1763880902","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/0853975002544","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}