Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming

I ordered my copy of ZONES OF CONTROL: PERSPECTIVES ON WARGAMING when its forthcoming publication was announced last year. Recently I had heard that its publication was imminent ... but the announcement did not include an actual publication date. It was therefore a pleasant surprise when my copy was delivered yesterday afternoon.

The book has been edited by Pat Harrigan and Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and published by MIT Press (ISBN 978 0 262 03399 2). It has 806 pages and is intended to provide 'a diverse set of perspectives on wargaming's past, present, and future.' It is divided into nine sections, each of which starts with what the editors term 'an anchoring chapter by an established authority.' These are then followed by 'a variety of shorter pieces both analytical and anecdotal'.

The contents are as follows:

• Editors’ Introduction by Pat Harrigan and Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
• Series Forword
• Foreword: The Paper Time Machine Goes Electric by James F. Dunnigan

PART I: PAPER WARS

• A Game Out of All Proportions: How a Hobby Miniaturized War by Jon Peterson
• The History of Wargaming Project by John Curry
• The Fundamental Gap between Tabletop Simulation Games and the “Truth” by Tetsuya Nakamura
• Fleet Admiral: Tracing One Element in the Evolution of a Game Design by Jack Greene
• The Wild Blue Yonder: Representing Air Warfare in Games by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood
• Historical Aesthetics in Mapmaking by Mark Mahaffey
• The “I” in Team: War and Combat in Tabletop Role-Playing Games by A. Scott Glancy

PART II: WAR ENGINES

• War Engines: Wargames as Systems from the Tabletop to the Computer by Henry Lowood
• The Engine of Wargaming by Matthew B. Caffrey Jr.
• Design for Effect: The “Common Language” of Advanced Squad Leader by J. R. Tracy
• Combat Commander: Time to Throw Your Plan Away by John A. Foley
• Empire of the Sun: The Next Evolution of the Card-Driven Game Engine by Mark Herman
• The Paths of Glory Lead but to the Gaming Table by Ted S. Raicer
• New Kind of History: The Culture of Wargame Scenario Design Communities by Troy Goodfellow

PART III: OPERATIONS

• Operations Research, Systems Analysis, and Wargaming: Riding the Cycle of Research by Peter P. Perla
• The Application of Statistical and Forensics Validation to Simulation Modeling in Wargames by Brien J. Miller
• Goal-Driven Design and Napoleon’s Triumph by Rachel Simmons
• Harpoon: An Original Serious Game by Don R. Gilman
• The Development and Application of the Real-Time Air Power Wargame Simulation Modern Air Power by John Tiller and Catherine Cavagnaro
• Red vs. Blue by Thomas C. Schelling
• Hypergaming by Russell Vane

PART IV: THE BLEEDING EDGE

• Wargaming Futures: Naturalizing the New American Way of War by Luke Caldwell and Tim Lenoir
• Creating Persian Incursion by Larry Bond
• Modeling the Second Battle of Fallujah by Laurent Closier
• Playing with Toy Soldiers: Authenticity and Metagaming in World War I Video Games by Andrew Wackerfuss
• America’s Army by Marcus Schulzke
• We the Soldiers: Player Complicity and Ethical Gameplay in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare by Miguel Sicart
• Upending Militarized Masculinity in Spec Ops: The Line by Soraya Murray

PART V: SYSTEMS AND SITUATIONS

• Wargames as Writing Systems by Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi
• Playing Defense: Gender, Just War, and Game Design by Elizabeth Losh
• Debord’s Nostalgic Algorithm by Alexander R. Galloway
• The Ludic Science Club Crosses the Berezina by Richard Barbrook
• War Games by David Levinthal
• Troubling the Magic Circle: Miniature War in Iraq by Brian Conley

PART VI: THE WAR ROOM

• Wargames as an Academic Instrument by Philip Sabin
• Lessons from the Hexagon: Wargames and the Military Historian by Robert M. Citino
• Simulation Literacy: The Case for Wargames in the History Classroom by Rob MacDougall and Lisa Faden
• The Amateur Designer: For Fun and Profit by Charles Vasey
• Struggling with Deep Play: Utilizing Twilight Struggle for Historical Inquiry by Jeremy Antley
• Model-Driven Military Wargame Design and Evaluation by Alexander H. Levis and Robert J. Elder

PART VII: IRREGULARITIES

• Gaming the Nonkinetic by Rex Brynen
• Inhabited Models and Irregular Warfare Games: An Approach to Educational and Analytical Gaming at the US Department of Defense by Elizabeth M. Bartels
• Chess, Go, and Vietnam: Gaming Modern Insurgency by Brian Train and Volko Ruhnke
• Irregular Warfare: The Kobayashi Maru of the Wargaming World by Yuna Huh Wong
• A Mighty Fortress is Our God: When Military Action Meets Religious Strife by Ed Beach
• Cultural Wargaming: Understanding Cross-Cultural Communications Using Wargames by Jim Wallman

PART VIII: OTHER THEATERS

• Wargaming (as) Literature by Esther MacCallum-Stewart
• Tristram Shandy: Toby and Trim’s Wargames and the Bowling Green by Bill McDonald
• Third Reich and The Third Reich by John Prados
• How Star Fleet Battles Happened by Stephen V. Cole
• Total Global Domination: Games Workshop and Warhammer 40,000 by Ian Sturrock and James Wallis
• When the Drums Begin to Roll by Larry Brom
• War Re-created: Twentieth-Century War Reenactors and the Private Event by Jenny Thompson

PART IX: FIGHT THE FUTURE

• War, Mathematics, and Simulation: Drones and (Losing) Control of Battlespace by Patrick Crogan
• How to Sell Wargames to the Non-Wargamer by Michael Peck
• Wargaming the Cyber Frontier by Joseph Miranda
• The Unfulfilled Promise of Digital Wargames by Greg Costikyan
• Civilian Casualties: Shifting Perspective in This War of Mine by Kacper Kwiatkowski
• Practicing a New Wargame by Mary Flanagan

• Acknowledgements and Permissions
• References
• Index

This is a massive tome, and it is not a book that one is able to read overnight. Neither is it a book that is one could describe as 'not put downable' ... in fact to someone who has become used to reading most books on a Kindle, it feels like it weights a ton! That said, I think that it has something for everyone who likes to think about wargames and wargaming, and from what I have read so far, I believe that it is going to become a book to which people will refer for many years to come.