Foreign Policy Magazine :- How Chess Explains the World And predicts the rise and fall of nations. BY JOHN ARQUILLA - JULY 8, 2013

Sometimes art imitates life; some games do so as well. In the case of chess especially, the parallels with power politics are many and uncanny, persisting over the centuries. Originating on the Asian subcontinent, chess moved to Persia ("checkmate" comes from shah mat, "the king is dead") but really began to diffuse widely during the great age of Arab conquest, starting in the 7th century of the Common Era. The structure and rules of the game remained consistent for centuries within Muslim domains, but in Christian countries to which chess spread, innovations emerged.