Past Futures: From Re-enactment to the Simulation of History in Computer Games

Abstract

Vergangene Zukunft. Vom 'Re-enactment' zur Simulation von Ge schichte in Computerspielen?. History is one of very few academic disciplines that do not investigate simulation. This is probably due to the fact that histori cal reality cannot be changed retrospectively nor extended into the future. In a strict sense, the simulation of history is a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless several fields of application have emerged over the past decades: there are simulations of history in the pre-modern sense of mimesis; there are re enactments (a performative way of 'simulating' history; there are digital simu lations of history, mainly in computer games that allow the player to influence the course of events, and there are didactic applications intending to make his tory experienceable. In this article, I will first discuss some examples from the different fields of application before I will analyze the impact of the simulation of history in different media on our notion of history.