Commemorating an exhibition that closed in January 2003, this big, square book revivifies a forgotten corner of American popular culture. On nearly every page, it displays the board, box cover, and other accoutrements of one or more nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century board games, exemplified by some of the best-kept specimens of the old amusements, their brilliant colors barely jaundiced with age. Hofer's sparse text imparts that board and table games enjoyed their American heyday from the 1840s to the 1920s, though, of course, the type persists, as the continued popularity of Monopoly, invented as late as 1935, indicates. Indeed, some of the oldest games survive, perhaps in adapted form, to this day--for instance, Fish Pond lives on as a little children's activity at fund-raiser carnivals. Hofer presents the games in such broad and narrow topical chapters as "Parlor Amusements" (a big category) and "War Games" (almost all based on the Spanish-American War), and usually relays just enough, and never too much, information in the captions for one of the most charming sets of illustrations imaginable. Ray Olson
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