Alfred Wallace: Another Great Miscellany

A few notes on various subjects as we begin the weekend…

First, I’d like to be one of the very many people to thank Chris Farrell for all the great blogging and game writing he’s done over the years.  He was one of the people who inspired my own game-blogging; he’s been one of the better writers and minds out there for a long time.  Don’t be a stranger, Chris…

The BGN Festivus game of Amun-Re on Spielbyweb has concluded. smcilhatton won; he had the most points in the Old Kingdom, and lo and behold he had the most points in the New Kingdom.  I finished last, ten points back.  The NK points were extremely close—three with 24, then 23 and 22.  I bought a card with my sacrifice to Amun-Re the last round, hoping for a bonus power card…and I got one, but not one of the ones I could use.  I guess then I’d have finished only seven points back, but I’d feel better.  I’ve started another one up:  Groundhog Day, password bgn.

I’ve just picked up Italia, the latest from Phalanx, and the latest in the Britannia-inspired games.  I have quite a fondness for these games, I have to say.  I appreciate games that have huge sweeps of history (usually; 7 Ages didn’t grab me for whatever reason).  (Sweep of History is even the name of the ‘zine for them.) I have been trying to get a full set of the Britannia-style games; I’ve been doing pretty well in my quest.  I don’t have Dragon and the Pearl or Hegemonia, but I have the other published ones.  Actually…I had Peninsula Italica, but I sold it off—so maybe I’m not trying as hard as I think I am.  Anyway, I must say that Italia is the most impressive entry I’ve seen.  It’s just gorgeous.  Phalanx has been hit-and-miss with me, but it’s undeniable that their games are nice to look at.  (I even like the Revolution board.) I’m glad to see that Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage is being reprinted, and I’ll probably get a copy (to replace my French copy, which I can read but my opponents usually can’t), but a part of me wishes Phalanx was doing it and really making a work of art out of it.

One of the courses I’m taking this semester is a proseminar on American Social History, where we’re exploring some of the ways historians have looked at everyday people and everyday life in the US.  One of the popular subjects of study is popular culture and amusements.  I’m curious whether historians in some distant era will look back and find our little universe, and if so what they’ll make of it.  I haven’t seen a study of proprietary games yet; surely there is one and I’ve just missed it—likely there’s some study of Monopoly.  Of course, when we play games, we (or at least I) don’t think of ourselves as participating in some grand historical milieu—but in social history, that’s the point.  It’s about looking at how people got through the day and discovering things about them from that.

I do think there should be some more historians looking at hobbies.  There are leisure historians, but they usually study public leisure—amusement parks, spectator sports, zoos, that sort of thing.  Hobbies are different; both very personal and individual but also part of a much larger network of people.  And it goes back a while; think about stamp collecting.  You collect stamps and put them in your album in your own home, but you’re also usually connected with Lord-knows-how-many other stamp collectors.  This all well predated the Internet and has taken advantage of whatever communications are available.  There are also conventions and whatnot, enabling people to be connected that way. 

My sense is that boardgaming has been a “hobbyâ€? for a relatively short time.  Before that, and continuing today, games were just things you had around; maybe you had a couple, and you maybe pulled them out.  I don’t think people collected them, traveled across the globe to play and accumulate them, or wrote weekly columns about them until the wargame boomlet of the sixties and seventies, and then again with the euro boomlet of the past ten-fifteen years. 

Hobbies come and go, too.  People used to collect bird eggs—don’t see much of that anymore.  Shell collecting was a huge craze in the mid-19th century; some of the Civil War soldiers whose letters and diaries I’m using in my thesis mention the various carbonifera they march past.  (Edgar Allan Poe’s biggest seller in his lifetime?  A manual for shell collectors.) It’s an open question whether boardgaming as a serious hobby will endure; I certainly like to think so, but I imagine the egg freaks had their own reasons for believing their hobby would remain popular, too.

(Any other history academics reading this?  If you are, and manage to publish on this before I do, I’d appreciate an acknowledgement.  Thanks!)

(I’m not that jealous of “my turf,” really...)

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