Garry Kasparov is not the first former chess champion to be placed under arrest. Bobby Fischer was nabbed in the early ’80s by police in Pasadena, California, where his behavior provoked them to suspect that he was mad, a view not entirely dispelled by Fischer’s subsequent written account, “I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!” Kasparov, more prosaically, was briefly taken into custody in Moscow this spring when he was en route to a pro-democracy rally.

While Fischer’s bizarre and tragic behavior over the years fits the stereotype of the mad chess genius, Kasparov is something else altogether: a chess legend who seems as sane away from the board as he is over it. Kasparov’s interests go far beyond chess, making him a rarity in the game’s venerable history. He retired in 2005, at age 41—although he still topped the world rankings—to pursue a second career in politics. Now a prominent organizer devoted to countering Russian president Vladimir Putin’s ­authoritarianism, Kasparov is, thanks to his celebrity, an effective ambassador for the cause. He also writes frequent op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and is a shrewd promoter of chess books and software. With How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves—From the Board to the Boardroom, he makes his debut as a management guru.

If retired jocks can write inspirational books, I see no reason to ­exclude ­retired chess luminaries from the field of management advice, and perhaps  ­executives will find Kasparov’s prescriptions useful. He has plenty of combat experience to draw on, such as his single most humbling moment at the chessboard, when he lost his title to Vladimir Kramnik. Kasparov blames the loss on his overconfidence; he warns executives against believing they can do no wrong and, especially, against surrounding themselves with lackeys to validate their opinions.

I will remember this if I ever become a C.E.O., but I wouldn’t read How Life Imitates Chess for its insights into ­managerial technique any more than I would consult, say, the memoirs of Michael Jordan (to cite a figure whom Kasparov admires). The most riveting parts of the book, such as Kasparov’s taut accounts of his repeated psychological battles with Anatoly Karpov, the champion he unseated, deal strictly with chess. We are eager to learn how the author became the youngest champion ever and then dominated the game for 20 years, but we hardly entertain the thought of emulating him. The man is a genius, for Pete’s sake.

The focus on the intricacies of competitive chess does not mean, however, that the book is narrow or written for insiders. Kasparov moves fluidly in and out of the chess world, quoting Churchill, Goethe, and John F. Kennedy without seeming too pretentious. He has a touch for metaphor, as when he likens the endgame in chess to treaty negotiations that take place after a cease-fire. Or when, having explained the importance of coordinating one’s pieces, he observes that “physics tells us ordered systems lose less energy than chaotic systems.” But in such examples, Kasparov is using physics (or diplomacy) to illuminate chess, not the other way around. Knowing that the loss of one bishop weakens the other will not help the physicist. Some of Kasparov’s analogies do not quite ­apply to the world beyond the chessboard because chess is one of the “ordered systems.” Real life is not so neat.

One point that does travel is Kaspa­rov’s debunking of the chestnut “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He views contentment with alarm, as a step ­toward stagnation. This attitude applies more strictly to chess, in which players strive to improve their position on every move, but it also relates to individual development. In particular, it helps explain a mystery that nearly jumps off every page: Why did Kaspa­rov abandon what was perhaps the greatest chess career of all time to try to democratize Mother Russia, a long-shot prospect at best?

Kasparov, who as a young man tilted against Soviet orthodoxy, is a genuine democrat, and his thoughtfulness will appeal to Western readers. But there is more. “Success,” he confesses, “made me vulnerable.” In life, as over the board (where he displayed an aggressive, risk-prone style), he has thrived on the edge. Thus his advice to highly paid suits: Leave your comfort zone; brush your teeth with your left hand if you have to.

Kasparov says that when Karpov, his rival, faded, he lost the one challenger who consistently pushed him to the edge. He found a new opponent in the I.B.M. computer Deep Blue, which famously beat him—and he sounds as though he’s more bitter about losing to the machine than to any of his human foes.

Now, at 44, he has a new adversary: Putin. Whether Kasparov will ever run for office or merely continue as an organizer is unknowable, but this volume should make clear why Putin ought to regard him with concern. “Garik,” as Kasparov’s mother calls him, does not fight for glory; he fights to win. As he writes of his struggles with the Kremlin’s authoritarian occupant, “There is no losing with grace with such an opponent.” This is a management guru with shark’s teeth.