The Elusive Shift by Jon Petersen

 

This book has a lot of information in it, but while Peterson's prose has gotten more readable the past decade-ish, his voice is still distinctly soporific. I don't know that an authoritative history of early TRPGs is possible, but Peterson's work overall might be pretty close. People in this particular hobby (not all people in it, just some of us, I'm one) are still arguing about if not the exact same things, then like rhymes of those things. The fact that TRPGs first appeal to a lot of us when we're teenagers, and our preferences change as we get older, complicates things a lot. That said, the thing that jumped out at me from the book was the extent to which practically everyone arguing about TRPGs then was wrong about something or other; that's a thing that hasn't changed.