A wargaming renaissance has been underway in the US military. Having proven to be the most effective recruitment tool of the 21st century, games have proliferated across all levels of the military's strategic, operational, training, and rehabilitation architecture. From board games to high-tech digital and virtual reality platforms, wargames enable milarites to learn lessons from the past, play out possible responses to current crises, and explore the effectiveness of future operations and strategies. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Covid 19 pandemic, today wargames are a key means by which the US military--and many other militaries--make plans and fight wars.
Politics of Play is the first academic book dedicated to the US military wargaming renaissance. Grounded in 100 hours of interviews undertaken by the author during fieldwork with US military wargamers, it explores how games intervene in players' cognitive and affective registers using immersion and the drive to win. In addition, Politics of Play develops a new theory of play grounded in the thought of Jacques Derrida which seeks to expose and disrupt the politics and power relations at work in the use of games to produce warfighters in the digital age.
Industry Reviews
"Historically deep, theoretically acute and empirically sure-footed, Aggie Hirst has written a brilliant genealogy of the sublime pleasures and terrifying horrors born from the incestuous relationship of the ludic and the martial. After Politics of Play, the 'wargame' can no longer be treated as harmless fun or felicitous oxymoron but as the structure of feeling and agent of violence that increasingly defines the 21st century." -- James Der Derian,
Michael Hintze Chair of International Security, University of Sydney
"There has long been debate about what constitutes a theory of Wargaming; that debate can take a breather now, for this book constitutes the most comprehensive body of theory extant at this time. Merely reading the table of contents illuminates the wide range of topics important to the subject and forms a firm foundation for a formalized academic discipline of Wargaming, something debated and desired by the community for decades. My hat is off to her, and my
applause is loud and sustained." -- Peter Perla, Center for Naval Analyses and author of The Art of Wargaming
"Dr Hirst has written what we all have been wanting to read: a comprehensive theory of modern professional gaming. But, in addition to that, she has done so by building a very practical snapshot of the current thinking on professional gaming by some of the best practitioners in the field. This will be a fundamental reference text to understanding professional gaming, and a historical document that describes what the designers thought, and what we did, in this
time of resurgent gaming. It will be a reference for theorists and historians alike." -- Ed McGrady, Center for Naval Analyses
