![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Claudia Lo and Kaelan-Doyle Myerscough also deserve a special mention. When it comes to playing the games, Richard Eberhardt stands out for his extraordinary efforts, which have earned him the honorary title of Mikael’s board game husband. We wish to especially thank Jon-Paul Dyson for giving us access to the collections at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, and Geoff Engelstein for lending us games from his private collection, but also everyone in the board gaming community who has sold games to us. A few hours south from Dartmouth at MIT in Cambridge, Mikael has amassed a sizable collection of colonialist board games and taken every possible opportunity to play them for critical analysis together with colleagues, students, visitors, and friends. In this, Mary would like to thank her partner Joseph Havel for listening to more game history than he had ever bargained for. Finishing this book during a global pandemic, when so many tabletop games were converted to online play, was both liberating and a huge challenge and, we hope, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Gratitude goes especially to Danielle Taylor, who helped organize research trips, tracked image permissions, and provided a gracious sounding board for wild ideas during these past years. Big thanks to Max Seidman, Spring Yu, Jazz Foster, and Sukdith Punjasthitkul, her game team extraordinaire at Resonym, who played countless games as well as used our critiques to improve their own designs and to her research laboratory team at Tiltfactor, including a bunch of students taking classes over the years at Dartmouth and asking good, hard questions. A gracious thank you to Jeff Bowersox, who not only wrote the wonderful book Raising Germans in the Age of Empire but also granted permission for us to reprint one of his photos used in the book, taken by Joachim Zeller. viii Acknowledgments Thanks also go to Beste Grüße at the Stadtarchiv & Historische Museen, Stadtmuseum, Karlsruhe, for letting Mary play Jungdeutschland’s Schlachtenspiel. Andrew Topsfield must be thanked for his extensive, detailed work not only in research but also in singlehandedly salvaging the history of board games, particularly the game of the goose, along with the earlier work of Henry-René d’Allemagne. Irving Finkel is, to Mary, a grand inspiration in the lifelong pursuit of game history. Julie- Anne Lambert at the Bodleian Library provided Mary inexhaustible knowledge and resources. The seeds of the historical research started there. Isotta Poggi at the Getty proved an excellent resource when Mary was a visiting researcher at the Getty Research Institute as a Museum Scholar in 2017. A book of this scope and scale required many collaborators, friends, students, and colleagues who helped us in our mission, from playing games to digging through archives. Second, we have a lot of people to thank. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of these territories, and we honor and respect the many diverse Indigenous peoples connected to this land on which we gather, research, and write. This acknowledgment reminds us of the significance of place, the continued existence of Indigenous peoples, and our commitment to building respectful relationships with the Indigenous peoples who call these lands home today. This book was also written at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the traditional unceded territory of the Wampanoag Nation. This book was written in part at Dartmouth College, which is situated on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Abenaki people. We first wish to acknowledge Indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of the land, and the enduring and continuing relationship that exists between them and their traditional territories. Some were brought here or removed against their will, some were drawn to leave their distant homes in the hope of a better life, and some have lived on this land for more generations than can be counted. Playing Oppression Playing Oppression The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Contents Acknowledgments vii 1 Colonial Fantasies 1 2 Establishing Mindsets: Politics and Ideology in Early Board Games 21 3 World as Empire 39 4 Trading Excuses 67 5 Winners and Losers: Western Board Games in the Postwar Era 91 6 Explorers and Exploiters 113 7 Representations of the Other 125 8 Urgency and Hope: A Countercolonial Revolution 145 Glossary 169 Notes 173 Bibliography 195 Ludography 209 Index 217 Acknowledgments Every community owes its existence and vitality to all the people from around the world who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy to making the history that led to this moment. ![]()
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