• Introduction


• Chapter 1: Conceptualizing Wargaming


• Chapter 2: The State of Play


• Chapter 3: A Genealogy of Play in Western Philosophy


• Chapter 4: Deconstructive Play


• Chapter 5: Play as Pedagogy: Gaming the Cognitive Dimension


• Chapter 6: Playing the Player: Gaming the Affective Dimension


• Chapter 7: For the Win


• Chapter 8: The Politics of Immersion

Associate Professor in International Relations Theory and Methods in the Department of War Studies, King's College London

Situated in international political theory and critical military studies, Aggie Hirst's research focuses on play, games, and violence. Having completed her ESRC funded PhD at the University of Manchester in 2010, she held lectureships at the University of Leeds and City University of London before joining King's in 2017.

In the current century, games play a key role in many areas of our lives. Once thought frivolous and nerdy, videogames are now the leading global entertainment medium, and games are widely used in education, medicine, government...and war. Since 2014, the US government has directed the military to expand the use of wargames across their training, planning, and rehabilitation spheres. Combining original empirical data gathered at US military computer-assisted command post exercises (CPXs) and school-houses with a distinctive theory of immersive play, The Politics of Play offers a new critical analysis of the use of wargaming to produce soldiers in the digital age.