The Best of Times - BOOK 1 - 1901-1960
 Chess is not a parallel universe, nor is it enclosed in a bubble.
 The twentieth century is gone, never to return. But its great events on the chessboard deserve to be saved and appreciated, in what was at once the worst and the best of all times.
 Chess is one of the most beautiful manifestations of the game that life has given us, and in it, in the world, its work and its history are inscribed.
 The book is not only a history: it is also a tribute to the interpreters and protagonists of these events, the chess players, whose main chess gold diggers and wizards of the harlequin board have left their mark in letters of fire on the history of the king of games, throughout the twentieth century.
 Not all are heroes. As in life, there are second-rate players and anti-heroes, some of whom have left us brilliant and memorable creations.
 Such is the world and such is human nature in its complexity and dialectical interaction.