Michael Dummett (1925–2011)

The seminal work on the history of the Tarot pack of cards. A Scientific work based on solid documentary evidence shedding clear and stable light on a subject often arbitrarily discussed never getting serious consensus and propagating erroneous views, unbased theories, pure inventions and even lies.
The Tarot emerges as a pure game-based evolution of the older regular pack of cards, which developed in Italy in the 15th century, spreading quickly to the neighbouring countries where it matured and then to the rest of Europe.
A must for all those interested in the history of the tarot and of the playing cards and games in general.… (mehr)

Michael Dummett , prominente Britse taalfilosoof en professor in de logica aan Britse en Amerikaanse universiteiten heeft een bijzondere afkeer van raciale vooroordelen en de uitingsvormen ervan. Gedurende meer dan 30 jaar was hij overtuigd en actief mensenrechtenactivist. Dit boek is de neerslag van zijn opvattingen over de Europese politiek met betrekking tot vluchtelingen en immigranten.
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Dit boekje is bijna 10 jaar geleden geschreven, maar het is jammer genoeg nog altijd actueel. Door de grote leesbaarheid is het zeker een aanrader. Het is echter enkel nog tweedehands en als e-book te koop.
http://minervaria.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/vluchtelingen-en-immigratie/… (mehr)

My guess is that more than 99% of what is written about tarot in English is about fortune-telling. That's too bad, as divination wasn't the original purpose of tarot cards. They are playing cards, made for playing games - and there are plenty of great games played with the several different tarot packs, many of which are played actively even today.

Michael Dummett is one of the leading experts in the field of tarot games, while John McLeod, the owner of Card Games web site is one of the leading experts on card games in general. Together they have created an excellent book, covering basically all forms of tarot played in Europe. The book is based on all sorts of documents and literary sources, but also plenty of fieldwork amongst the actual players of the games.

This is a very professional and serious book, filled mostly with rules of games. Casual card gamer will probably find it rather dry and over-whelming, and will fare better with what McLeod has published on his web site. For serious tarot fans, there just isn't another book like this. You need to have this book in your collection, no doubt about it.

The first volume covers tarot games of Italy, France and Switzerland, from the earliest games to the modern French and Italian games. The second volume covers the Austrian 54-card branch.

(Original review at my review blog.)… (mehr)