Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 214

December 3, 2018: Pearl Harbor Histories: The Attack

[December 7thmarks National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, so this week I’ll remember and AmericanStudy some histories related to the 1941 attack. Leading up to a special post on how we remember such infamous days.]On three little-known histories that add layers to the Pearl Harbor attack.1)      The Other Attacks: On the same day as the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese forces also launched attacks on three other US territories (the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island) and three British ones (Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong). Compared to the immediacy and intense focus of the Pearl Harbor bombings, those other attacks tended to be the start of multi-day and –week (or even –month) campaigns, and so they were less dramatic, produced far fewer casualties in that first day, and generally don’t stand out in the same ways as did and does Pearl Harbor. All of which is to say, I understand why Pearl Harbor drew the lion’s share of the outrage, attention, and collective memories, in its own momentand down into ours. But when it comes to collective memories I’m an additive guy, and so I think it would still be interesting and important to make these other attacks, and thus these other spaces and communities, part of our remembrances on December 7th as well. 2)      The First Prisoners of War: Despite that central focus on Pearl Harbor, there are of course also histories related to that attack with which we’re not as collectively familiar. For example, while the bulk of the attack was from the air, the Japanese sent five two-man “midget submarines” to raid the harbor; all five were sunk, and nine of their ten crew killed. The tenth, Japanese sailor Kazuo Sakamaki, lost consciousness while trying to detonate an explosive device in his submarine and was found and captured by an American infantryman, Native Hawaiian and Hawaii National Guard member David Akui. Sakamaki became the first Japanese prisoner of war in the U.S., and his submarine became the second: it was recovered and exhibited around the country as part of wartime propaganda and fund-raising efforts. After his return to Japan at the war’s end, Sakamaki wrote a memoir, apparently an honest and thoughtful attempt to grapple with both his role in the attacks (the English title is I Attacked Pearl Harbor) and his time as a POW (the Japanese one is Four Years as Prisoner of War Number One), each of which make Sakamaki one of the war’s most significant individual figures. 3)      The Niihau Incident: Another prominent Japanese individual, Shigenori Nishikaichi, was part of a more complex and fraught post-Pearl Harbor history. Nishikaichi’s Zero fighter was damaged during the attack, and he flew to Niihau, a small nearby Hawaiian island that the Japanese had chosen as a landing and rescue point for such damaged aircraft. Niihau had no radio or other means of hearing about the attacks, and that separation contributed to a complex and controversial next few days for Nishikaichi and the island’s few inhabitants, a period that ended with Nishikaichi dead, a Japanese American islander committing suicide after allegedly collaborating with the pilot to recover maps and documents taken from the plane, and a set of questions that remain open to this day. As that last hyperlink notes, a new film in production about the incident seems likely at the very least to reopen all those questions, and perhaps stir up anti-Japanese American fears at a moment when such xenophobia is literally the last thing we need. But such is the complex ongoing legacy of Pearl Harbor and its many historical contexts and echoes.Next history tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

December 1-2, 2018: November 2018 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]November 5: Major Midterms: 1826: A midterm elections series kicks off with the single-party midterms that presaged an era of partisanship and conflict.November 6: Major Midterms: 1858 (and 1859): The series continues with how Congressional elections can reflect and even amplify societal collapse.November 7: Major Midterms: 1874: Extending our concept of historical turning points but resisting narratives of inevitability, as the series rolls on.November 8: Major Midterms: 1930 and Huey Long: The illustrative and iconoclastic sides to a newly elected Senator.November 9: Major Midterms: 1994: The series concludes with three ways the 1994 elections foreshadowed our 21st century moment.November 10-11: Major Midterms: The 2018 Results: A special weekend post, quickly following up this year’s historical midterms.November 12-18: Finally, a Book Update!: For my blog’s 8th anniversary, a long-overdue and very happy announcement about my forthcoming book, We the People: The 500-Year Battle over Who is an American!November 19: GettysburgStudying: The Address: On the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, a series kicks off with two compelling choices in Lincoln’s concise masterpiece. November 20: GettysburgStudying: Joshua Chamberlain: The series continues with a vital historical turning point and the amazing story and man behind it.November 21: GettysburgStudying: Longstreet and Lee: The distinctions between military and cultural history, and their connections, as the series rolls on.November 22: GettysburgStudying: Board Games: Three board games through which I learned a lot about Gettsyburg and other war histories.November 23: GettysburgStudying: Remember the Titans: The series concludes with the over-the-top sports movie scene that shouldn’t work but somehow still does.November 24-25: Thanks Givings: A holiday special post on a handful of the things for which I’m most thankful this year!November 26: In Love and War: Casablanca: On the anniversary of its premiere, a wartime romance series kicks off with two ways the iconic film resonates in the age of Trump.November 27: In Love and War: The English Patient: The series continues with the limits and lessons of an anti-Casablancastory.November 28: In Love and War: Gone with the Wind: Why I’d still critique Margaret Mitchell’s romantic hero, and a more interesting side to his character, as the series rolls on.November 29: In Love and War: A Farewell to Arms: Two important elements beyond the autobiographical in Hemingway’s wartime romance.November 30: In Love and War: Pearl Harbor: The series concludes with the uses and abuses of history in Michael Bay’s historical blockbuster.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

November 30, 2018: In Love and War: Pearl Harbor

[On November 26, 1942 the great Casablanca premiered in New York. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]On the uses and abuses of history in Michael Bay’s most serious blockbuster.First, let’s stop for a moment and acknowledge the basic impressiveness of the fact that the director of Bad Boys (and sequels), Transformers (and sequels), The Rock, Armageddon, and the like made a historical epic about the Pearl Harbor bombing and its World War II aftermaths. Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan came out in July 1998 (three years prior to Bay’s film) and so I suppose would qualify as a summer blockbuster, but it was Spielberg, and the post-Schindler’s List and AmistadSpielberg at that—nothing surprising about a historical epic from that guy. But from the man who’s probably currently in production with both Transformers 4 and Bad Boys 3? Again, worth noting and, at a baseline level, admiring.Moreover, it’d be pretty silly to critique Bay’s film for making a friendship and a love triangle central to its plotlines. After all, that’s the nature of the genre I’ve elsewhere dubbed period fiction—works of art that set universal human stories against a backdrop of (often) impressively realized historical moments. While those of us who care deeply about the histories themselves might be frustrated that such works relegate them to the background, it would be just as possible to argue the opposite: that works of period fiction help modern audiences connect to their historical subjects through engaging and accessible human characters, stories, and themes. After all, none other than the godfather of historical fiction, Sir Walter Scott, could be said to have done precisely that in the creation of characters like Waverlyand Ivanhoe. Yes, I just compared Michael Bay to Sir Walter Scott, and I stand by it.On the other hand, I would argue that if a piece of period fiction is set in wartime, it owes its audience at the very least an equally compelling and affecting portrayal of war: Saving Private Ryan, whatever its flaws, certainly offers that, especially in the opening sequence linked above; Gone with the Wind , more flawed still, is nonetheless at its best in depicting the Civil War and particularly the destruction of Atlanta. Thanks to its sizeable budget and state-of-the-art special effects, Pearl Harbor is able to include an extended depiction of that bombing, among other battle sequences—yet to my mind (and you can judge for yourself at that link and the follow-up part 2) it fails utterly at capturing any of the brutalities or terrors, or any other aspects, of war. The problem isn’t that the director of Transformersis making a wartime historical epic—it’s that the wartime historical epic doesn’t feel noticeably different from any other action film in his oeuvre. November Recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?

November 29, 2018: In Love and War: A Farewell to Arms

[On November 26, 1942 the great Casablanca premiered in New York. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]On two important elements beyond the autobiographical in Hemingway’s war romance.Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929), the tale of an American serving with the Italian ambulance corps during World War I who is injured and falls in love with his English nurse, has frequently been read as an autobiographical novel of Hemingway’s own experiences as an American serving with the Italian ambulance corps during World War I, getting injured, and falling in love with his American nurse. The parallels are so clear that In Love and War (1996), the film adaptation of the novel which gives this week’s series its name, stars Chris O’Donnell as none other than Ernest Hemingway and Sandra Bullock as the American nurse with whom he falls in—you get the idea. While there are of course differences between Hemingway’s story and that of the novel’s narrator and male protagonist Frederic Henry—most notably in the outcome of their respective war romances—I’m not going to argue that the book wasn’t clearly and centrally inspired by the author’s personal life and identity.Even the most autobiographical novels are works of fiction with other layers and elements beyond the life experiences, though, and A Farewell to Arms has a couple of particularly significant ones. For one thing, I think Hemingway creates a pretty nuanced portrayal of his female protagonist, Catherine Barkley. I know Hemingway’s general reputation when it comes to depictions of women, and I may have even contributed a bit to that narrative (while also trying to challenge it) in parts of this prior post. But while Farewell is certainly Frederic’s story (he is the narrator, after all), his narration and the novel still do justice to some central aspects of Catherine’s identity: her wartime work as a nurse, her status as (like Frederic) an expatriate working in Italy, and especially her experiences of the possibilities and dangers of pregnancy and childbirth. Those last subjects are most overtly outside of the autobiographical experiences of a male author, and while Hemingway again filters them through Frederic’s perspective he still depicts them in complex and thoughtful ways.More directly part of Frederic’s perspective, but also importantly separate from and bigger than him (or any one character), is the novel’s portrayal of war. Again this element at least somewhat belies Hemingway’s reputation as a man’s man obsessed with machismo, an image bolstered by his inclusion of numerous violent activities and sports in many of his works, from boxing to bullfighting to big-game hunting. Yet as that hyperlinked post suggests, Hemingway could critique such activities at the same time that he certainly could and did celebrate them, and the portrayal of war in Farewellis far more critical than celebratory. The title alone suggests Frederic’s eventual desertion from his duties and comrades, an action often portrayed in war literature as the height of cowardice but treated far more sympathetically in Hemingway’s novel. Indeed, the nonsense and atrocities Frederic faces from those supposedly on the same “side” as him feel at times much more along the lines of a wartime satire like Catch-22 than any idealization, heroic depiction of war. One more element that makes Hemingway’s most autobiographical novel also one of his very best.Last romance tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?

November 28, 2018: In Love and War: Gone with the Wind

[On November 26, 1942 the great Casablanca premiered in New York. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]On why I’d still critique Mitchell’s romantic hero, and a more interesting side I’ve come to better appreciate.Occasionally in this space I’ve referenced my first published article, which appeared in the Southern Literary Journal 15 years ago: “‘What Else Could a Southern Gentleman Do?’: Quentin Compson, Rhett Butler, and Miscegenation.” The quoted question in that title comes from the pivotal scene, early in Mitchell’s second half, when Scarlett finds Rhett in jail; he’s shot and killed an African American man for “being uppity to a [white] lady” (614), and asks the question of Scarlett. But as I noted in this post, for the whole first half of the novel Rhett has resisted and challenged the stereotypical “Southern gentleman” worldview on issues like slavery and the Civil War, such as in the key scene where he argues that the “Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages. … It had to go and it’s going now” (238). This moment and statement in prison thus represents a striking change in his perspective and character—one that will continue throughout the remainder of the novel, culminating in his final decision to leave Scarlett in search of somewhere in the South “where some of the old times must still linger” (1022).In my article I called Rhett’s transformation into a conservative white supremacist the greatest failing of Mitchell’s novel, and I would still say the same. After all, she creates Rhett as a really compelling and attractive romantic male lead (including for the reason I’ll get to in the next paragraph), and thus draws readers into feeling the same continued interest in him that Scarlett does (despite Scarlett’s repeated attempts to focus instead on the far more conventional Ashley Wilkes). As a result, we’re willing to go along with Rhett into those white supremacist perspectives far more easily than we otherwise might have been (at least if we’re more progressive readers), and even to see our own move, like his, as simply a begrudging recognition of the realities of Reconstruction’s “horrors,” of racial equality and the threat of miscegenation, and a bunch of other mythic nonsense that Mitchell’s second half fully and frustratingly perpetuates. (Rhett’s and Scarlett’s realizations of what “Reconstruction in all its implications” means [635] indeed comprise a key arc of Mitchell’s second half.) For all those reasons, with Clark Cable’s uber-charismatic film performance layered on top of them, I would call Rhett one of the most destructive characters in American literature.No literary work can or should be defined through the lens of a single social or political issue, though, and Mitchell’s novel isn’t simply or solely about race and the South (important as it is to keep those themes in mind). And if we turn instead to the question of gender roles and expectations, Rhett, like Scarlett, becomes a more consistently complex and genuinely attractive character. As I argue in my article’s opening, Scarlett appears to be a Southern belle stereotype (with her “magnolia-white skin” and “seventeen-inch waist” [5]) but throughout the novel challenges and undermines those images, becoming instead an increasingly independent and strong woman. Similarly, while Rhett could be superficially described as a classic gentlemanly suitor, I would argue that his continued interest in Scarlett is due instead to his recognition of how different she is from the stereotype—particularly if we contrast their relationship with that of the far more conventional/stereotypical Southern characters Ashley and Melanie Wilkes. If readers are going to continue falling in love with Rhett—and again, it’s very hard to read Mitchell’s novel and not find him attractive—at least he offers (especially for the time periods of the novel’s 19th century setting and its early 20th century publication) a relatively nuanced and thoughtful portrayal of gender and identity.Next romance tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?

November 27, 2018: In Love and War: The English Patient

[On November 26, 1942 the great Casablanca premiered in New York. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]On the limits and lessons of an anti-Casablanca story (SPOILERS for The English Patient in what follows).I remember distinctly the moment I showed my parents The English Patient (1996) on home video (this post focuses entirely on the film, as I don’t know the book well at all). I had fallen in love with the movie in theaters, and couldn’t wait to share it with two of my favorite people. My Mom shared my enthusiasm, but much to my surprise my Dad kind of hated it. Casablanca has long been one of his favorite films, and he argued that The English Patient makes the case for precisely the opposite lessons from those I highlighted in yesterday’s post: for self-interest and romance as more important than communal solidarity in times of war, as indeed the best ways to resist the dangers and divisiveness that war inevitably brings. Although neither of the film’s beautiful but doomed romances—between Ralph Fiennes’s Almásy and Kristin Scott Thomas’ Katharine in the past and Juliette Binoche’s Hana and Naveen Andrews’ Kip in the present—endure, both are certainly idealized, not only as iconic loves but as alternatives to the ugly realities and effects of war.I think that my Dad’s take was a fair critique (and my love for Patient doesn’t mean I’d put it on Casablanca’s level), but I would add a couple important elements to the discussion. For one thing, as I wrote in this long-ago post, the film situates its emphasis on personal and romantic needs as a direct (and to my mind compelling and important) critique of the kinds of “us vs. them” mentalities that guide nations far too often and never more so than in wartime. Such collective solidarity is of course inevitable when a nation is fighting against others, and is easier to stomach when that conflict seems as righteous and necessary as did the Allies’ fight against the Axis powers during World War II. Yet as I’ve highlighted many times in this space, even “good wars” like that one can produce horrific excesses, both those directed at the enemy and those targeting imagined enemies on the homefront. When The English Patient’s Hana argues, “There’s a war. Where you come from becomes important,” Almásy responds, “Why? ... I hate that idea,” and I tend to side with him in that exchange. Perhaps there will always be wars, but we can still work to resist their worst effects, and a story like The English Patient might help us to do so.Yet in truth, every action that we take during war has the potential for negative effects, and any of us who pretends to be certain about what those effects might be for any particular situation is likely to be surprised and disappointed. And The English Patient likewise reflects those painful realities, as the actions taken by Almásy and Katharine in the course of their romance—and especially those taken by Almásy as he rejects national allegiances and alliances in order to try to save his love’s life—have catastrophic effects on many around them, including some of those about whom they care most. That doesn’t mean that we’re not meant to sympathize with Almásy’s actions or see them as the wrong choices, and so my Dad’s critique of the film’s emphasis still holds water. But I suppose what I would say is that these actions might be romantic, but they’re not romanticized—or at least that the film offers a realistic representation of what such romantic relationships and choices can and too often do mean in a world at war.Next romance tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?

November 26, 2018: In Love and War: Casablanca

[On November 26, 1942 the great Casablanca premiered in New York. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that film and four other wartime romances!]On two ways the iconic film resonates in the age of Trump.While of course any 76-year old movie is going to feel dated in various ways, I would argue that Casablanca also feels about as contemporary as any 1940s film could. There are numerous reasons why (including the whip-smart dialogue and very telling human moments), but I would say that the film’s iconic romance is a particularly relatable element. Casablancais at one and the same time a deeply sentimental love story and a realistic examination of the limits of such romantic love in a world where those kinds of personal relationships don’t necessarily amount to, well, much more than a hill of beans. And, as that hyperlinked final exchange illustrates (SPOILERS here and throughout, duh), the movie combines those two seemingly contradictory tropes into a final vision of romantic love as something that we can carry with us and be inspired and motivated by even if the world and its realities take us in other directions. That’s a lesson well worth playing again and again, I’d say.It’s also a timeless one, of course. But there are likewise elements of Casablanca that have more specific lessons to offers us in this Age of Trump. For one thing, the arc of Humphrey Bogart’s Rick directly and powerfully refutes the “America First” rhetoric of Trump and company (rhetoric that of course had made its debut during the 1930s). Rick may be far away from the United States, but the insular concern for only his own café and needs with which he opens the film nonetheless clearly reflects American isolationism and self-interest (in but not limited to World War II). Part of what pushes him toward engagement with the world instead is still a personal interest, if one centered on another person’s needs: his love for and desire to help Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa. But through her, Rick also connects to the resistance efforts of her husband, Paul Heinreid’s Victor Laszlo; and while in their love triangle Rick and Victor are rivals, in the course of Rick and the film’s arc the men become allies as well. Rick’s concluding decision to join the resistance even convinces Claude Rains’s corrupt police officer Renault to do the same, a potent representation of the broader potential effects when Americans step outside their insulated bubbles and join the cause of freedom and social justice worldwide.Of course, as I write this post in early November many of the most prominent news stories involve not the U.S. entering the world, but the world coming to the U.S., most especially in the form of refugee communities. Nearly all of the characters in Casablanca are refugees and exiles from the war in Europe; and, for that matter, so were many of the film’s actors, especially those who played supporting roles. As film historian Aljean Harmetz puts it, these refugee actors brought to their roles “an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting.” What truly motivates Rick’s evolution in the film, starting as early as his famous nod in the iconic “duel of the anthems” sequence, is his recognition that these refugee and exile communities deserve respect and support, and indeed his sense that he is in solidarity with them. It would seem to be a truism that America is in solidarity with refugee communities—with the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, to coin a phrase—but in fact that has always been a contested concept, and never more so than in late 2018. So we could all still stand to learn the romantic, realistic, and timeless lessons of Rick and company’s journey in Casablanca.Next romance tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other wartime romances you’d highlight?

November 24-25, 2018: Thanks Givings

For one of my favorite holidays (yes, even as a vegetarian!), a handful of things for which I’m very thankful this year:1)      Taking a long look at a musical artist I hadn’t taken seriously enough, and loving what I found;2)      Allergy shots, and my younger son’s easiest and best spring in a long, long time;3)      Adult learning programs: I connected to my fourth, Beacon Hill Seminars, this fall, and got as much out of the connection as I do from all of them;4)      My agent, Cecelia Cancellaro, without whose consistent faith I likely wouldn’t have a fifth book at all, and certainly not one I’m so proud of;5)      Solidarity. Community. Sharing the battle with you all.In thanks! Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What are you thankful for this year?

November 23, 2018: GettysburgStudying: Remember the Titans

[On November 19, 1863President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettsysburg Address. Few American speeches have been more significant, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy the address and a few other Gettysburg histories and contexts. Leading up to a special Thanksgiving weekend post!]On the over-the-top scene that really shouldn’t work, but somehow does.About midway through Remember the Titans (2000), Denzel Washington’s Coach Herman Boone takes the players on his newly integrated Virginia high school football team (who have gone to Pennsylvania for training camp) on a midnight jog. The team ends up, to their and the audience’s surprise, on the grounds of Gettsyburg National Military Park, where Boone gives a speech on the Civil War battle and both its continuing resonances in and potential lessons for the team’s and its community’s struggles with racial discord and division. The speech and scene ends with Boone’s fervent hope that perhaps, if the players and team can learn the lessons that the battle’s dead soldiers have to offer, they can “learn to play this game like men.”For anybody who has any sense of the horrific awfulness that was Gettysburg, or just the horrific awfulness that was the Civil War in general (and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with Ta-Nehisi Coates when he argues that the war wasn’t tragic, but it sure was bloody and awful in any case, and never more so that on days like Gettysburg’s), this evocation of the battle’s dead for a football team’s lessons feels a bit ridiculous. For that matter, if we think about the most famous speech delivered at the battlefield, in tribute to those honored dead and in an effort to hallow that ground (a phrase that Boone overtly echoes in his own closing thoughts), the filmmakers’ choice to put Boone’s speech in the same spot (and I don’t know whether the Gettysburg speech took place in the real-life histories on which the film is based, but it seems from this article as if it didn’t and it’s a choice in the film in any case) feels even more slight and silly in comparison to that transcendent historical moment.So the scene really shouldn’t work, not for this AmericanStudier at least—but I have to admit that it did when I saw the movie, and did again when I watched the scene to write this post. Partly that’s due to the performances—Denzel is always Denzel, and the main kids are uniformly great as well (including a young Wood Harris, later Avon Barksdale on The Wire). Partly it’s because great sports films are particularly good at taking what is by definition cliché (all those conventions I mentioned in yesterday’s post) and making it feel new and powerful in spite of that familiarity. And partly, ironically given those Gettysburg contrasts, it’s because of the history—because this football team and its story does connect to America’s tortured and far too often tragic legacy of racial division and discrimination, and because the story and thus the film represents one of those moments when we transcended that legacy and reached a more perfect union. When sports, and sports films, are at their best, they have that potential, which is one main reason why we keep going back to them.Special post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think?

November 22, 2018: GettysburgStudying: Board Games

[On November 19, 1863President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettsysburg Address. Few American speeches have been more significant, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy the address and a few other Gettysburg histories and contexts. Leading up to a special Thanksgiving weekend post!]On three board games through which I learned a lot about war histories and stories.1)      Ambush!: Ambush!, which began with a focus on post-D-Day European campaigns and then expanded to include Italy and the Pacific as well, stands out as (by far) the best solitaire board game I ever played. But its style of gameplay also captures the uncertainty and constant danger of warfare as well as anything I’ve encountered: as the player moves his eight squad members across the board in pursuit of each unique mission, anything and everything can suddenly transpire: sniper fire, the arrival of an enemy tank, an encounter with a civilian, a mine or other explosive device being triggered. Awaiting the results of each move was, as board games go, as nerve-wrecking as it gets.2)      Sink the Bismarck!: Something about board games with exclamation points, I suppose. Inspired by one of the most unique naval histories in World War II, as well as the 1960 British film of the same name, Sink the Bismarck! was an incredibly complicated board game, and I’m not sure I ever played with every rule and feature (or even most of them). To be honest, I spent a good deal of time just examining the board, the pieces and cards, the rules and peripheral materials, learning not only about the game but also about the histories and stories connected to this famous German battleship, to the Axis and Allied naval armadas, and to all the complexities of naval warfare. I don’t think Michael Scott Smith would mind that outcome one bit.3)      Gettysburg: Ah, the genius of Avalon Hill’s Gettysburg, a game that was at one and same time deeply grounded in the battle’s histories (the board alone taught me a great deal about the battle’s locations and landscapes) and open to each player’s and game’s unique choices (I still remember the time I had J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry flank the Union lines and capture General Meade, winning the battle in one fell swoop; luckily for all Americans it didn’t really work out that way!). The battle and war are history, but the game made them come alive, made them new and meaningful for each player and experience. I owe much of my enduring love of history to precisely such effects.Last Gettysburg post tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?