In the nineteen-thirties, a Quaker couple invited a friend, a heater repairman named Charles Darrow, to play. One variant emerged in Atlantic City, where a group of Quakers renamed the tiles after local landmarks-Oriental Avenue, Park Place, Boardwalk-that made them feel tailored to their home. The game, which was meant to depict the evil of such owners, spread like a folktale, adopted by communities who tweaked the rules to suit their tastes and circumstances. Magie called her creation the Landlord’s Game, basing it on the theories of Henry George, an influential economist who argued that the value of land should be shared by the people rather than extracted by property owners. At the time, most board games, like most novels for children, were viewed as vessels for moral instruction. The game was originally designed in 1903, by Lizzie Magie, a charismatic feminist, actor, and poet. But in “Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History,” a new PBS documentary, we learn that this wasn’t always the case. Most games invite players to best their opponents few require such total humiliation as Monopoly. By the end of the game, all but one player sit, frowning, indebted to the friend or family member who has negotiated, through an infuriating combination of luck and avarice, domination of the board. Move by move, territory is lost to competing landlords, who work to bankrupt their rivals, acquire their assets, and establish a monopoly. The first player to land on a property tile has the option to buy the land, on which he can then build houses and hotels, and charge visitors rent. Each tile represents a major street or district in a real-world city. Players take turns moving their respective token around a square board. Most aficionados agree that Monopoly, if not a bad game, is at the very least designed to embitter its players. Monopoly probably wasn’t responsible, but it can’t have helped. It was an unhappy marriage, Perry writes, and they divorced when he was a baby. In a recent memoir, the actor Matthew Perry, of “Friends,” reveals that his parents spent the hours before his birth playing the board game Monopoly.

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