Studies in History Vol 5: The Goose and the Machine

Games of the Goose, Owl Games, Harlequin Games – the Rijksmuseum holds more than 400 such board games, created between 1830 and 1914, when Europe was industrializing at breakneck speed. But these colourful pastimes were more than children’s toys: they were mirrors of a world in transition.

Through dice, cards and spinning wheels, young players learned not just to read and count, but to navigate a modern landscape of machines, commerce and travel. Board games became tools of imagination and instruction, spreading the ideas and values of a new age. They invited players to journey across new terrains, marvel at modern inventions and explore a rapidly changing Europe – all from the comfort of the parlour table. Yet behind their cheerful imagery lay the contradictions of the Industrial Revolution: war, colonial expansion and antisemitism crept into the playroom, normalizing the darker ideologies of modernity.

In The Goose and the Machine, Céline Zaepffel uncovers how nineteenth-century board games captured both the dreams and the disquiet of their time – teaching generations to play, imagine and believe in a world remade by progress.