Hi, folks. We're off for the holidays this week, but we wanted to revisit an episode of

now and then from this past August that has particular relevance during this season

of gift giving and family fun.

This episode is called From Monopoly to Mystery Day. And in it, Joanne and I looked at the

development of the American board game from the influence of the game of the goose in

early America to the pre-civil war origins of the checkered game of life to a couple of

1960s games that loomed large in our memories and gave us some ideas for our own future.

Indeed, although I remember one of them was the nip-ganop, I think, which I hadn't thought

of since I was 12. At any rate, we are going to be back in the new year with brand new fresh

now and then episodes. We are ever excited to continue to make connections between our

current crucial moment in so many ways and the American past that has led up to it.

And so without further ado, here's an encore presentation of From Monopoly to Mystery

Date and the ideas that it sparked.

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is now and then.

I'm Heather Cox Richardson.

And I'm Joanne Freeman. Today we've got kind of a summertime topic for you. We pondered

what we wanted to talk about today. And here we are in August. Summer isn't over, but

it's sort of looming the end of it, perhaps on the horizon. And we thought, wouldn't

it be great in late summer to take you into a discussion of something that is not super

serious? And so we decided that what we would like to discuss today is board games. The

history of board games, what board games show and mean. And to be honest, there are a

lot of really goofy board games. So at any rate, we wanted to talk about board games and

...