Arshad Ali wrote:
Couldn't agree more. When looking at older chess books, with their airy conclusions based solely on dogmatic positional judgments, buttressed by no tactical lines or just a few sample variations, one is almost invariably left frustrated and unconvinced. The analysis has to be run through a chess engine, and then it either has to be binned in toto or at least drastically revised. Today's annotators are testing their analysis against a chess engine and/or trying to make engine analysis palatable in terms of human understanding. The quality of analysis in today's better chess books is streets ahead of the quality of analysis of chess books thirty, forty and fifty years ago. Our understanding of the game has been vastly enhanced because of engine analysis.
I'd disagree with what you are saying here. I would say that the quality of analysis is not much different: perhaps even better ages ago with regards to players analysing their own games, demonstrating their understanding and giving an insight of their own thoughts. Though an advantage of that is not many modern players have actually published their games as of the 21st Century, and I am excluding those that explain games that they didn't play. Anish Giri, is one, though that was more to do with explaining his improvement from youth chess to now.
With regards to opening theory books, well: its not that surprising nowadays is better generally due to building up on previous works, though I'm sure there are some quality books that just can't be matched. Other books in terms of a more general approach, e.g. Nunn's books are very good however is that due to the author's writing skills and chess acumen, or building on previous works?
I'm sure this sort of discussion is a matter of one's taste with regards to reading chess books.