Failing better at understanding the past
I think the series of posts on cavalry charges is more or less finished now (although there might be occasional sequels in the future). This is my last post before christmas, and what better way to get everyone in a festive mood than… writing about the Holocaust?
Since last week I’ve been playing the demo of Making History: The Calm and the Storm. My first impressions are that it’s a good game, but it is very much a game and not a simulation. It’s hard to believe that this is what Niall Ferguson was getting so excited about, or that he could be in awe of anyone who has won as Germany. If you approach the game on its own terms (as I suggested in my first post about games and simulations), the initial strength of Germany and the inherent weaknesses of Artificial Intelligence make it quite easy to win.
The free demo of Making History: The Calm and the Storm 2.0 is now out, but be warned it’s 251MB! I talked about the game and Niall Ferguson’s view of it it two previous posts (games and simulations, and more games and simulations). Now I can try it out for myself, so expect to see another post when I’ve played it.
Children’s history writer and researcher Gary Smailes has started a blog at Breathing History, which is well worth reading.
History Carnival XLIII is now up at Axis of Evel Knieval (clearly the best name for a blog ever). Next edition is on 1st December at Barista. Submit posts about any aspect of history using the submission form.
Esther MacCallum Stewart has recently started a new blog at Glod’n'Epix which covers her work on computer games (in addition to her First World War stuff at Break of Day in the Trenches). Reading this has made me realise that I have no reason to be ashamed of liking computer games. Gaming isn’t a waste of time and can even be a valid subject for academic study. Meanwhile, Jeremy Boggs at Clioweb posted a link to an article by Niall Ferguson about a computer simulation of the Second World War. This led me to think about how games can be used by historians, and what they can and can’t tell us. It’s probably no surprise that I don’t agree with Niall Ferguson on this (or lots of other things).
All original content on this site written by Gavin Robinson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. This license DOES NOT cover direct quotes from other sources or comments left by other people.
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