The "highest" complement to this 1969 chess book is that between 1970 or so when I bought it to now, I have bought over 5 copies of it. Either I have given the book away as a present to a new chess player or others have decided to borrow it indefinitely (usually at a tournament). I agree with the first reviewer that the presentation is an art of teaching; one that we lose in the modern day ECO's etc... I have many of the newest chess opening books; however, I often return to see the roots of the variations and to see the classic games and "ideal variations - traps" which one must be concerned about. I feel that every new chess player should own and read this text - the ideas behind the opening are carefully reviewed and these ideas become conceptual instead of just memorized lines.

Horowitz comes from the old days of Chess Review, etc., and his writing is geared to a smaller audience with a more serious interest in chess than today. I completely disagree with the other reviewers that it would be better to upgrade the book to algebraic notation. This notation is useful because it identifies specifically the topography of the battlefield, but the older descriptive notation(which varied from language to language) is far superior for reading enjoyment and understanding
because it is 4-dimensional, not 1-dimensional like algebraic. It divides the board into 4 zones:white and black, king and queen.
The new generation prefers algebraic only because they have been brainwashed by looking at computer screens too much. I will admit
that Fine's book on opening theory, which got redone into algebraic, is a beautiful book, but he was still up and running to make sure it came out that way. Horowitz's literature on the openings is always equal to the best from anywhere, e.g., Hungary, Germany, Russia, Sweden, and you know the rest, and will still be read a 100 years from now. If fact, it would probably be fair to say that without the writings of Fine, Horowitz, and Reinfeld, American chess would have died after the days of Marshall and Pillsbury and Fischer's career would never have happened.

This book is one of my most prized chess books. (I have owned hundreds over the years).

It is simply the best one volume openings book ever published.

This book is broken down by opening variation, and sub-variation. What is unique is that the book illustrates many of the elementary traps that many of the other books omit. It also very clearly explains the ideas behind each of the openings (much more verbage in this respect than MCO or NCO, for example).

It also provides what are called "idea variations". Roughly put, these are variations that may not actually occur in actual practice, but are what you would play if given the chance. (Normally they are either prevented or avoided due to strategic or tactical problems. Nevertheless, knowing them gives you a much fuller understanding of the aims of the opening.)

Finally, at the conclusion of each sub-section, there is typically a small number of complete master level games illustrating the variation being discussed. Many of these are all-time classics. In this way, you get to see immediate application of the ideas without having to dig through other sources to find games featuring the opening you are studying.

If you can find a copy of this book anywhere, grab it immediately! It will be a long time before you run accross another one.

As to the downsides of this book, there are three significant ones;
1. It is out of print - very difficult to find. Even if you do find one, you may end up paying a lot, or ending up with a book that is in not too good condition.

2. It is current up to around 1963. In terms of the Double King Pawn openings this is probably less of a problem than some of the Queen Pawn openings such as King's Indian, Leningrad Dutch, Benoni, etc. or the Sicilian Defense, etc.

Some of these openings have undergone some radical new developments since that time period. (For example, don't try out the Sicilian Dragon Defense armed with only the variations covered in this book - you will get hosed quickly!)

3. The book is written in the older descriptive notation. For those of us who are over 40, this is probably no big deal. For those younger players, this may put them off as everything written today is in algebraic notation.

I heartily recommend this book - I guarantee that you will not be sorry for choosing to add it to your library. I ONLY WISH THAT SOMEONE WOULD UNDERTAKE THE TASK OF UPDATING THIS BOOK INTO ALGEBRAIC NOTATION WITH MORE CURRENT VARIATIONS. NOTHING OUT THERE RIGHT NOW IS EVEN CLOSE!!

"Israel and the Arab Revolution" by Gus Horowitz is essential reading for the working class, oppressed peoples movements, and their supporters around the world. It consists of a debate among revolutionaries as to whether the demand for a democratic secular Palestine should be unconditionally supported. That is: a state where Arabs and Jews would live as equals, replacing the Zionist, racist and religiously based colonial-settler state of Israel, which is a state similar to the old apartheid South Africa, or the old Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

The debate occurred in 1971, just 4 years after Israel seized large chunks of land in the 1967 war against Arab countries, a year after Jordan's King Hussein had slaughtered thousands of Palestinians and two years before Israel's next war of aggression in 1973.

Along with the Palestinians' just struggle, this document takes up the struggles of the Arab countries against Zionism and imperialism. It includes the struggle of the Israeli working class and the working class of Arab countries as well. The revolutionary way forward is presented. The perspective laid out is crucial today.

...against the Palestinian people.
The documents in this pamphlet were originally a set of of working
notes for revolutionaries in the 1970s active in the anti-Vietnam War
movement, the Black liberation struggle, the aborning women's liberation
movement, early Chicano and Puerto Rican movements...For the
thousands of fighters who marched against Sharon's brutal assault , in D.C.
and S.F. ( spring 2002 ), and those who resist the Empire's new war on Iraq
( the Zionist government has already drawn up plans to expell two
million Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza during the 2nd Gulf
War ), they are no less useful whatever your age or
experience in struggle .Zionism and the Israeli state have always been at
the service of Empires ( first the British one and then the Yanki one ) ; until
1979 it was part of a twin set of gigantic military platforms for the Yanki
empire,along with Iran.Its alliance with the real 'axis of evil' in Washington
D.C. and the brutal repression used by Israel to try to humiliate the
Palestinians as a people is making Israel a death trap for the Jewish
people ; the historic program of the original fighters ( 'terrorists' unlike
Sharon ? ! ) for Palestinian liberation against Zionism AND anti-Semitism; all
these themes are explored.Most important is the program put forth by
revolutionary socialists in the Belly Of The Beast : there can be no peace
in the Middle East until there is a democratic secular Palestine from the
River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. For basic ( especially historic
blow by blow ) info if you need it, first buy Palestine And The Arabs
Struggle For Freedom, and Israel's War Aganst the Palestinians.For
evolution of Arafat and the PLO, read Opening Guns Of World War III ; all
the above also by Pathfinder Press.But buy this pamphlet TOO; with these
books and pamphlets you can go out and talk to the millions of workers,
farmers, students WHO ARE SEEING THE TRUE FACE OF ZIONISM
FOR THE FIRST TIME. Those are people we must help to be educated
and motivated to act on their horror at the massacre in Jenin, etc.With
patience and no patronizing.Just the facts.

This is a set of fundamental documents that analyze the issue of Israel and Palestine from a socialist perspective. They show the basic nature of Israel as a settler-colonial state that is opposed to any advances for liberation, democracy, or social progress for the peoples of the Mid-East and War. They show the basically racist nature of Zionism, and how its permanent mission is oppression andexpansion against the Palestinian people. It also shows how dismantling the Zionist racist state and establishing a democratic, secular Palestine with equal rights for all is the only solution.

This is not a book for beginners, trust me I am one. There are different types of chess notation and this book uses an earlier type. Its hard enough for me to remember what e4+? means without having to figure RKB7 is. After the first chapter this book turns into alphabet soup.

I gleaned a few valuable pointers from the text and this may be a wonderful book. Unfortunately I will have to wait until I learn the proper notation system to determine that.

I used to have a copy of this book, many years ago. I think I gave it away. To a student who craved the basics.

This is a very good book, no let's say a great book. There are chapters on tactical chances, sections on the opening, basic endgames, etc. I could go on, but by now you should get the idea.

If you have a friend, a student, or someone who just learned chess, this is the ideal book to give them!! Need I say more?

If you are a chess fan,like me,you may want to improve skills.This book,is one good beginner's book.My brother reads it a lot.It tells the good standard openings,like P-K4,P-Q4,N-KB3,and so on.
If you want a good chess book,Chess For Beginners by Isreal Al Horowitz is a great start for improving your chess skills.But one disadvantage:the descriptive notation.It's pretty hard to learn without this book.You'll be able to understand notation well,as well as being able to play the wonderful game of chess well.I guarantee it!

This book deals specifically with 3 and only 3 openings - the Stonewall Attack for White; the Sicilian Dragon and Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit Declined for Black. It presents 4 to 6 example games for each opening with pretty good commentary and explanation for each. However, each example given is a highly successful adoption of the subject opening, which gives good illustrations of what they are capable of, but which might give the inexperienced player the impression that each is a sure-win bet. After all, 6 examples of the Dragon will barely scratch the surface of this line and 6 out of 6 wins might be a little misleading to the novice.

Part 4 of the book is titled, "How to Exploit Inferior Play by Your Opponent". It contains 4 examples of Morphy and Alekhine crushing no-name opponents who are offered up as cannon-fodder for former world champions. Hardly inspiring and not very good examples of play for beginners.

What this book does offer, however, is 3 solid choices of openings (1 for White; 2 for Black) for beginners who may have just joined a club or school team and need a limited opening repertoire to use against stronger players while they learn the game in more depth. It gives several very concrete plans to follow and they are presented in very clear fashion with the reasoning behind the moves. The authors occasionally use phrases such as "White intends..." or "Black plans...", but whether that justifies the title of the book, "How to Think Ahead in Chess" is debatable.

On the whole, if you are a beginner who needs some openings to play while you continue to develop, this may be just the book. But if you are rated over 1300 or so, you need to have a keen interest in the Stonewall or in Lasker's Defense to bother with this book.

Master Horowitz and enthusiast Reinfeld's _How to Think Ahead in Chess_ tackles the problem of the mediocre play of most of us chess players most pointedly: Know only 3 openings, a few positions, and several variations -- but know them well. Train your eye upon the image of key chess positions seen through the analytical eye of the master. And, masterly, your chess instinct will react. This is the most fun book of chess I ever read. I've had it for well over 10 years and, the book is true to its back cover blurb, "you will enjoy each game to the fullest." Improving chess demands work. And for those of us afficianados with pedagogical interests, this is a "must have." This is not a beginner book nor a complete treatment. It is just a unique yet effective vehicle which may give your chess games a quantum leap toward the rewards of their deeper understanding. Four stars because a book should solve the basic human dilemma (whatever that is) to earn 5, and I'm conservative with my praise upon others or myself. I don't know a lot about winning a lot of chess games, but I know a lot more about my own approach thanks to this book.

Most of us know how to open and then wait for something to develope, somtimes this goes well, other times not so well. After reading this book you will have a clear cut idea/strategy from the first move to the last!! I went from a mediocre player who usually finishes somewhere in the middle, in our chess tournaments at work, to the CHAMPION!! All from reading this book. Gives the reader a definite strategy whether he is playing white or black!! Makes the game interesting and more fun! This book is not for beginners but for those of us who have a grasp of the game but lack an overall system for consistent wins. A MUST READ!!! If you are looking for a chess book that is easy to read and understand, don't hesitate to purchase this work of art.

As beginners my son and I have found that playing through the games contained in this book are very educational. One of the best ways to learn about chess is to actually re-enact previously (well) played games. This book contains many, many chess games from the past, with comments

Since the early 1900s, more than 90% of all Quaternary-age pollen analyses have come from sediments with well-preserved fossil pollen such as peat bogs or related type deposits; furthermore, until the 1960s, many palynologists considered sediments from deserts and other arid-like environments a waste of processing and analysis time. Horowitz's book on arid lands is his attempt to change our minds about the potentials for recovering fossil pollen data from arid environments. He admits that although arid land sediments pose many special problems for sampling, processing, and recovering fossil pollen for analyses, they are, nevertheless, worthy of our attention and analysis. To date, Horowitz's book is the most thorough coverage written on the subject of fossil palynomorph sampling, processing, and recovery from arid environments. Thirty years earlier, Paul S. Martin of the University of Arizona wrote a now classic monograph called the Last 10,000 Years. During the 1960s his book served as a "wake-up call" to archaeologists, geologists, ecologists, and palynologists, and demonstrated that deposits collected from highly alkaline arroyo soils, from arid land archaeological sites, from playa lakes, and from desert surface transcets should be examined and utilized for interpretive purposes. It was the pioneering efforts of Martin and some of his graduate students that encouraged others to rethink their attitudes about fossil pollen recovery from arid lands, and go on to develop new techniques that would conquer the special palynological problems posed by arid land deposits. One of these other people was Aharon Horowitz. During the past 25-30 years as a palynologist he has tried to solve some of the sampling, processing, and interpretive problems created by arid land environments. Palynology of Arid Lands...is a book most of us should own as a handy reference. It is divided into 11 chapters with half of them covering a host of narrow topics such as sampling, extraction, identification, and interpretation. The rest address broader topics related to vegetational reconstructions, special problems created by archaeological sites, and the constraints and precautions that one should heed when examining arid land samples. One of the strong points of the book is that for many topics Horowitz discusses many different points of view, whether he agrees with them or not. Also included in the book is an extensive bibliography, a reference index of authors cited, and a subject index. As a palynologist who studied under Paul S. Martin, and who has also spent most of my career working with pollen records from arid lands, I found one major point in Horowitz's book with which I could not agree. In the United States, one major focus of current fossil pollen research in arid lands is trying to determine the interpretive importance of pollen influx, pollen concentration, and the ratio of identifiable vs. indeterminate pollen grains per unit volume (or weight) of sediment. Horowitz admits that this is not one of his major concerns. He says he is more concerned with knowing what "is still identifiable" in an arid land sample than he is in determining how many palynomorphs, or which taxa, may have been present originally. Also, he doesn't state whether or not he counts, or includes in his statistical data, the number of pollen grains in each sample that are no longer recognizable as anything more than just being a palynomorph of some indeterminate type. My major research thrust, and the research of a number of others working in the arid regions of the United States, have focused more on trying to understand the elements that cause pollen destruction in arid land sediments. Our efforts center on trying to determine what the total palynomorph assemblage of an arid land sediment may have been at the time of deposition, and how the palynomorph assemblage has changed in composition through time. We believe that knowing "only" what palynomorphs remain in a deposit is only part of the needed answer. We feel that, to interpret our fossil data correctly, we must first gain an understanding of how many palynomorphs and how many different taxa may have been deposited originally. In a recent article, Dr. Stephen Hall and I noted that in one large study of fossil pollen samples from arid land sediments in the U.S. we found that 70% of the deposited pollen "disappeared" between the time it was deposited and the time it became preserved and that 60% of the individual pollen types could no longer be found in the buried deposits. Thus, I question the validity of trying to interpret any fossil record based on only 30% of the original palynomorph assemblage and 40% of the originally deposited pollen taxa. Horowitz, on the other hand, believes that "any" pollen data from arid land samples is important for interpretative purposes. He does add that the level of interpretation and reliability of the data may vary depending on the amount of pollen recovered. Perhaps it is the many problems of trying to extract and identify fossil pollen records from arid land deposits that has created several distinct "schools" of thought as to how one should interpret "what is left" of the fossil pollen record. These same problems also create different views about how one should extract palynomorphs safely from arid land sediments. Horowitz, for example, believes in using only minimal extraction techniques and then counts "dirty" slides. As he says on page 172, "Counting such slides is in a way a matter of getting used to." I believe that one can sometimes make more counting errors trying to find and identify palynomorphs on a "dirty" slide than they might make if the slide were cleaner. However, I would agree with Horowitz that extreme care must be exercised during extraction or one might "process" away many of the fragile and badly deteriorated grains in an arid land deposit. Most of us who work with arid land sediments would agree that the extraction process is perhaps the single most important step in determining the eventual reliability of the fossil pollen data. In spite of my disagreements with some of the ideas expressed in Horowitz's book, I respect his views and can appreciate the effort and long hours that went into the data gathering and writing of this book. I would also agree with what one of my early mentors once told me, "It is far easier to criticize someone else's work than it is to produce your own work for someone else to criticize."