ALLAN B. CALHAMER (1931-2013)
Of all the games ever made, this one has probably caused more friendships to fall apart than any other. I played it exactly once and was ready to physically attack some former friends that I felt had stabbed me in the back, which is the premise for the board game Diplomacy.
I just can't behave like that, even in a game. I went down fast as Austria-Hungary (if I recall). Then sulked the rest of the evening.
The origins of the game date back to when Allan B. Calhamer was a boy and discovered an old geography book in the attic of his La Grange Park home and found the old, pre-WW I, country borders in Europe. "That was the seed of the game," he later recalled.
The final inspiration came when he was at Harvard in a class on 19th-century Europe. and he read his professor's book "The Origins of the World War."
"That brought everything together. I thought, 'What a board game that would make.'"
Never Again, Never Again, Says I. --DaCoot
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