Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.

Acknowledgements1. Introduction: To Build a Past that Will "Stand the Test of Time": Discovering Historical Facts, Assembling Historical Narratives, Andrew B.R. Elliott and Matthew Wilhelm Kapell Part I: History as a Process: Teleology, Causation and Technological Determinism2. The Same River Twice: Historical Representation and the Value of Exploring Societal Concepts in the Total War, Civilization, and Age of Empires Franchises, Rolfe Daus Peterson, Andrew Miller and Sean Joseph Fedorko 3. What is "Old" in Videogames? Dan Reynolds 4. "Affording History": Applying the Ecological Approach to Historical Videogames, Adam Chapman Part II: History written by the West: Self, Other and Non-Western History5. Phantasms of Rome: Video Games and Cultural Identity, Emily Joy Bembeneck 6. Modeling Indigenous Peoples: Unpacking Ideology in Sid Meier's Colonization, Rebecca Mir and Trevor Owens 7. Dominance and The Aztec Empire: Representations in Age of Empires II and Medieval Total War II, Joshua D. Holdenried with Nicolas Trépanier8. From History to Literature to Game: Three Kingdoms and the Cultural Significance of Asian History, Hyuk-chan Kwon 9. Falling in Love with History: Japanese Girls and Otome Games, Kazumi Hasegawa Part III: User-Generated History: Realism, Authenticity and the Playable Past10. Selective Authenticity and the Playable Past, Andrew J. Salvati and Jonathan M. Bullinger 11. The Promise of Simulation: Realism, Authenticity, Virtuality, Josef Köstlbauer 12. Modding the Historians' Code: Historical Verisimilitude and the Counterfactual Imagination, Tom Apperley 13. Modding as Historical Reenactment: A Case Study of the Battlefield Series, Gareth CrabtreePart IV: The Politics of Representation: Authenticity and Realism14. Historical Veneers: Anachronism, Simulation and History in Assassin's Creed II, Douglas N. Dow 15. Air Power vs. Processing Power: Technology and Narrative Possibilities in WWI Video Gaming, Andrew Wackerfuss 16. Videogames in the popular Culture of Remembrance of the Cold War: A Case Study of Call of Duty: Black Ops, Clemens Reisner 17. Refighting the Cold War: Video Games and Speculative History, Marcus SchulzkePart V: Looking Back on the End of the World: History as Utopian Possibility 18. Strategic Digital Defense: Video Games and Reagan's 'Star Wars' Program, 1980-1987, William M. Knoblauch 19. Fallout and the History of Yesterday's Impossible Tomorrow, Joseph A. November 20. History Out of Time: Fallout's Ironic America, Tom Cutterham21. The Historical Conception of Biohazard in Biohazard, Robert Mejia and Ryuta Komaki22. The Struggle with Gnosis: Ancient Religion and Future Technology in the Xenosaga Series, Erin Evans 23. Conclusion: Playing at True Myths, Engaging with Authentic Histories, Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and Andrew B.R. ElliottIndex