DISPATCHES PERSPECTIVE
Trigger Happy
Shoot first, ask questions later
STEVEN POOLE
Long-distance Nazi-faceshooting might be a pleasure exclusive to the modern age, but the roots of the military-entertainment complex go back further than we might suppose. Of course there is the example of chess, a symbolic wargame, skill in which was required of Renaissance princes and generals. But the symbiosis between games and war really began in earnest with the Prussian tradition of kriegsspiel, or wargaming. This is explained in a fascinating new book by the neuroscientist Kelly Clancy, Playing With Reality: How Games Shape Our World, which thankfully is not a hymn to ‘gamification’ but about the cultural and political uses to which games, and thinking about games, have been put throughout history.