Contents

Links for contributors lead to further information on those individuals. More information on the editors can be found on the Editors Page.

1.  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 Determinism

2. 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: Civilization and the Ecological Approach – Adam Chapman

Part II: History written by the West: Self, Other and Non-Western History

5. 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 Trépanier

8. 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 Past

10. 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 Crabtree

Part IV: The Politics of Representation: Authenticity and Realism

14. Historical Veneers: Anachronism, Simulation and History in Assassin’s Creed II – Douglas N. Dow

15. ‘This Game of Sudden Death’: Simulating Air Combat of the First World War – 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 Schulzke

Part 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 Cutterham

21. The Historical Conception of Biohazard in Biohazard – Robert Mejia and Ryuta Komaki

22. 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. Elliott