Praise

C. Jason Smith, Professor of English at the City University of New York, LaGuardia, and co-author of Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley says this:

“Playing with the Past is a serious cultural contemplation on a media genre that forever changed the way a generations thinks. An engaging exploration into the way media engages and redefines history. Playing with the Past is a groundbreaking work in Media Studies and an essential text for the study of video games and the history of ideas.”

Gerald Voorhees, editor of the Approaches to Digital Game Studies series of books and Assistant Professor at Oregon State University says:

“Playing with the Past is a far-reaching volume, guiding readers through ancient civilizations, modern wars, and futures premised upon counterfactual pasts. In this reflexively-organized array of essays, game scholars will find both a primer on historiographic inquiry and a series of cogent analyses that are not simply conversant with issues driving the field but also bring new depth and insight to their examination.”

William G. Doty, Author of the classic Mythography: The Study of Myths and Ritual, co-editor of Jacking In to the Matrix, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama says:

“Elliott and Kapell have gathered a remarkable collection of contributions —engaging deep issues about what history IS, and how one can present its issues in a vital contribution within contemporary studies. The scope is compendious, from Rome to Native America, from Japan to Colonial America; this book just might become the basis for up-to-the-minute narrative/historical/digital mediations, and should be of interest in the many fields of the superior college or university.”

Stephen McVeigh, author of The American Western, co-editor of The Films of James Cameron, and Associate Professor at Swansea University offers:

“Playing with the Past is an innovative, lucid and engaging collection that strikes a number of carefully constructed and rewarding balances. The tone is both serious and playful. Its analysis and findings are simultaneously rigorous, illuminating and entertaining. Playing with the Past provides a neat summation of the previous work which has explored the relationship between digital games and their interaction with history as a foundation to establish, with great sophistication and clarity, the critical and conceptual terrain for the current and future debates.”