Monopoly

It's the world's best-loved, best-selling board game, and it was inspired by a real place: Atlantic City, New Jersey. Now you can travel back in time for an intimate view of the prime real estate that made speculators of us all. Overflowing with vintage images -- from the hilarious costumes of "Lobster King Harry Hackney's Lobster waitresses" to the original 1920s "bathing beauties" to that memorable scene of Marilyn Monroe leading the 1952 Miss America Pageant parade -- Monopoly takes you on a nostalgic tour of "America's playground." You'll visit the various neighborhoods that became the Monopoly board's colorful properties, enter the magnificent hotels that lined the extraordinary boardwalk, and explore the amusement parks and entertainment centers as well as those railroads and utilities so important to the game. Along the way, you'll learn the fascinating history of the game and the city itself, and discover how "The Landlord Game," patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie and intended as an attack on cutthroat capitalism, was transformed by Charles Darrow in the mid-1930s into a celebration of it! - Jacket flap.