Govert Westerveld (Monnickendam - Holland, 1947), is a former draughts player, official Chronicler of the town of Blanca (Murcia - Spain), Hispanist, historian and researcher of the Chess, Draughts and Alquerque-12 games.

The first Spanish books about the game of draughts have a very high standard and date from the XVI century, while the first French book comes from the XVII century and the game description is very basic. Contrarily to this evidence scholars did not consider it necessary to grant Spain the honour of being the country of creation of the game of draughts and of the new modality in chess with the new dama. Both the Alquerque-3 and the Alquerque-9 games were known in Roman times. The situation is completely different for the Alquerque-12 game. It is said that the Alquerque has its origin in Egypt. Perhaps this is the case for the Alquerque-3 and Alquerque-9 games, but never for Alquerque-12. Some authors claim that the Alquerque-12 game is a Greek or Roman game, but the great expert of these games, Dr. Ulrich Schädler, discards those theories. The first volume of the Alquerque-12 game unravels France and Spain. The second volume deals with the remaining countries of the world.

(ancient history, european history, history books, history of the world, history of the catholic church, history classics, history channel books, search history, history france, history spain, barcelona spain, la france contemporaine).