This bibliography page lists the books of games cited in the rest of the website. If you're curious, they have more details about the games described here as well as other interesting games.

Each historical period also has its own bibliography section with some additional information about life in each period. I also give more information about the books in each of the period bibliography sections, describing the type of information they offer. Many of them were written for kids, but I recommend those books for adults, too. Kids' books are good for getting an introduction to a topic!

This page also includes a list of books about both games and India that I haven't used as sources in this page but still have interesting information.

Hope you've enjoyed the games and the site!

Bibliography

Bell, R.C. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1979.

Bell, R.C. The Boardgame Book. New York: Exeter Books, 1983.

Bolton, Lesley. The Everything Games Book. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2005.

Botermans, Jack. The Book of Games. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2007.

Botermans, Jack, Pieter van Delft, Tony Burnett, and Carla van Splunteren. The World of Games. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1989.

This is the English translation of a book that was originally written in the Netherlands. It covers a wide range of different types of games from various time periods around the world, but it also has a section that specifically talks about games from India.

Burns, Brian, ed. The Encyclopedia of Games. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1998.

Dhar, Sheila. Children's History of India. Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, 1960, 2013.

A general overview of the history of India with some helpful information about how historians know about the ancient history of India.

The Diagram Group. The Way to Play. New York: Paddington Press Ltd., 1975.

Grunfeld, Frederic V., ed. Games of the World. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975.

Instructions for Playing Chess. Included with Family Classics Chess/Backgammon/Checkers board game set. New Brunswick, NJ: Pressman Toy Corporation, 1986.

Mohr, Merilyn Simonds. The New Games Treasury. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.

Parlett, David. The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Provenzo, Asterie Baker and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Play It Again. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981.

Other Helpful Books

Sackson, Sid and the Editors of Klutz Press. The Book of Classic Board Games. Palo Alto, CA: Klutz Press, 1991.

This book came with two sets of playing pieces (black and white glass pieces) and a pair of dice so that readers could play on the game boards provided in the book. Among the games included are Checkers, Asalto (under the name Dalmation Pirates and the Volga Bulgars), Solitaire (the board game version), Halma (under the name Hoppers) and Backgammon.

Helpful Links

These are other sites and online articles about games from different historical periods and areas of the world.

This is a site dedicated to board games of the Ancient World. It has pictures and rules and links to related sites, including one about Ancient Recipes, in which they re-create ancient recipes from the Middle East. The games site also contains a list of helpful books about historical games.

A comprehensive site with rules for many ancient and classic games.

A general history of board games from ancient to modern times. The article follows a progression very similar to The Full History of Board Games and contains much of the same information. I believe that this article used The Full History of Board Games as a source because that article was written earlier, but it also contains some additional information from other sources. Topics included in this article that the other article did not discuss are Dominoes, Snakes and Ladders, Checkers (Draughts), Pachisi, Go, Shogi, Mahjong, Agon, Clue, and role-playing games.

This article is part of a larger site about different types of board games: Board Games Land. Recommended by a site reader. Thank you, Catherine!

This is an article about the history of board games from the earliest known games to modern times. The Complete History of Board Games contains much of the same information, and I believe it used this article as a source because this article is older. Topics included in this article that the other article did not discuss are Liubo, which was an ancient game from China, and Mancala.

This is a video of a lecture on the topic of ancient board games from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In particular, it talks about how board games spread from one society to another around the world and describes some ancient Egyptian games in some detail. The lecture takes a little over 2 hours, but roughly the first 9 minutes of the video is full of introductions about the speaker and can safely be skipped unless you're doing a scholarly study on the subject. In fact, I would say that the lecture is really mainly for scholars and can seem dry to people looking for a more general overview.

An interesting article about the shape of modern dice vs. the shape of dice used by the Ancient Romans. The shapes of ancient dice were imperfect, and so the dice were less fair, but depending on how ancient people viewed it, it may not have mattered.

Rules for a variety of old games from different time periods. Some of them appear on my site, but there are some that I haven't covered as well. This site sells replicas of historical board games: Masters Traditional Games: Historical Board Games.