> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://marc-saurette.gitbook.io/historical-game-studies-2024/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://marc-saurette.gitbook.io/historical-game-studies-2024/fundamentals/counterfactual-history-and-games.md).

# Counterfactual History & Games

Date: October 30th. 

Seminar Leader: Nicholas Langer

## Readings 

Tom Apperley, "Moddding the Historian's Code" Historical Versimiltitude and Counterfactual Imagination" in *Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Similation of History,* M.A. Kapell and A. B. R Elliott, ed. 

Kazumi Hasegawa, "Falling in Love with History: Japanese Girls’ Otome Sexuality and Queering Historical Imagination" in *Playing with the Past* (see above).

Aviezer Tucker, "Review: Historiographical Counterfactuals and Historical Contingency. Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals by Niall Ferguson. *History and Theory*, May, 1999, Vol. 38, No. 2 (May, 1999), pp. 264-276.

Scott L. Roberts, "Using Counterfactual History to Enhance Students’ Historical Understanding," *The Social Studies*, 102:3 (2011): 117-123, DOI: 10.1080/00377996.2010.525547.

## Going Further

For next time: Andrew Denning, "Deep Play? Video Games and the Historical Imaginary," *The American Historical Review*, Volume 126, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 180–198, <https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhab002>

[How to Win a War by Niall Ferguson](https://nymag.com/news/features/22787/)

The historian Niall Ferguson discusses how playing *Making History: The Calm and the Storm* challenged his counterfactual assumptions regarding the Second World War. Can games or historical games prove surprisingly insightful when it comes to counterfactual history?

[History and Game Design with Chris King, Game Designer, Paradox Development Studio](https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023446/History-and-Game)

Chris King, a game designer at Paradox Development Studio, offers insight to how Paradox turns history into games. Take note of how he says Paradox "shops around" (24:39) for historians (or more precisely historical theories) that suggest the best gameplay.

[The 1974 Sandhurst wargame of a hypothetical "Operation Sealion"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_\(wargame\))

This was a military war game of *Operation Sealion*, which was a German war plan for invading Britain in 1940. Since the players were professional military officers, this serves as an interesting case study of a "serious game" approach to counterfactual history.

With a nuclear North Korea and Iran on the way, the geopolitical situation is evolving in unpredictable ways. Can a hypersophisticated World War II simulation teach us 21st-century global strategy?...

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