{"product_id":"playing-oppression-mary-flanagan-9780262047913","title":"Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games","description":"\u003cb\u003eA striking analysis of popular board games' roots in imperialist reasoning--and why the future of play depends on reckoning with it.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBoard games conjure up images of innocuously enriching entertainment: family game nights, childhood pastimes, cooperative board games centered around resource management and strategic play. Yet in \u003ci\u003ePlaying Oppression, \u003c\/i\u003eMary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson apply the incisive frameworks of postcolonial theory to a broad historical survey of board games to show how these seemingly benign entertainments reinforce the logic of imperialism. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough this lens, the commercialized version of \u003ci\u003eSnakes and Ladders\u003c\/i\u003e takes shape as the British Empire's distortion of \u003ci\u003eGyan Chaupar\u003c\/i\u003e (an Indian game of spiritual knowledge), and early twentieth-century \"trading games\" that f黎ed French colonialism are exposed for how they conveniently sanitized its brutality while also relying on crudely racist imagery. These games' most explicitly abhorrent features may no longer be visible, but their legacy still lingers in the contemporary Eurogame tendency to exalt (and incentivize) cycles of exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn essential addition to any player's bookshelf, \u003ci\u003ePlaying Oppression\u003c\/i\u003e deftly analyzes this insidious violence and proposes a path forward with board games that challenge colonialist thinking and embrace a much broader cultural imagination.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Mary Flanagan, Mikael Jakobsson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0262047918\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780262047913\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/28\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.75lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.06h x 6.93w x 0.87d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/01\/2024","brand":"Mary Flanagan","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44070628884735,"sku":"9780262047913","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_5732f5ac-e0ee-42f2-bcb0-62e223407369.jpg?v=1685431431","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/playing-oppression-mary-flanagan-9780262047913","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}