The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-century Chess-playing Machine

Created by a Hungarian nobleman and presented at court to Empress Maria Theresa, the Turk was a mechanical man, fashioned from wood, powered by clockwork, dressed in stylish costume -- and capable of playing chess. Over the next eighty-five years, the Turk would travel throughout Europe and America, baffling, angering, inspiring, and intimidating challengers and audiences including such figures as Benjamin Franklin, Catherine the Great, Charles Babbage, and Edgar Allan Poe. Here, the story of the Turk, his colorful career, and his influence on the modern world -- and on our evolving view of ourselves in relation to machines -- is told by an author who "keeps us on the edge our seats" in what the Chicago Tribune calls, simply, "a gem of a book."