Mark C. Carnes

For his 1995 book Past Imperfect, a contribution to that always-fun hobby-horse of how historically accurate movies are, editor Mark C. Carnes pulled together an impressive line-up of historians and cultural commentators. Beginning with the coup of having popular palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould opine on the accuracy of Jurassic Park (pp31-5), Past Imperfect then jumps forward about 65 million years to deliver a series of chronologically-organised essays on films that depict human history. show more We get Band of Brothers and D-Day author Stephen Ambrose critiquing The Longest Day and hear the thoughts of Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, on Fort Apache. We have Paul Fussell discuss the Patton biopic: an excellent choice, because (as Fussell is only too keen to relate) he called the real Patton an "asshole" after being forced to listen to the tough-talking general during his wartime service (pg. 245). The calibre of contributors here is high.

Unfortunately, there is not a corresponding increase of calibre in the book. Its multiple contributors, short length of each article, 'did you know?'-style sidebars, and general mood of sedate evenhandedness combine to tame the end product, creating something that feels more like an almanac than anything else. With a few notable exceptions (such as Richard Marius' pugnacious analysis of A Man for All Seasons), Past Imperfect lacks the spikiness that a book of this type should have. It's one thing to not fall for the easy bait of mocking a film for not having the correct number of buttons on a uniform, but the determination of the contributors to be completely fair (the general formula is: admire the film, point out and provide context for the historical flaws) too often results in a nothing-very-much experience for the reader. Unlike other books of this type that I've read, I didn't close Past Imperfect with a list of films I wanted to check out, or revisit. The passion just wasn't there.

Elsewhere, Past Imperfect does expose itself to some of the (perhaps inevitable) criticisms that come the way of a book of this type. But even allowing for the fact that there will always be quibbles about which films were chosen and why, and how they are appraised, Past Imperfect seemed more unbalanced and unusual in its choices than most. There is more discussion of American civil rights and the settling of the American frontier than of the two world wars, despite those two wars (particularly the second) being one of the most popular and plentiful sources of film drama we have. There is also an excess of indulgence of Westerns, many of which are conscious mythology rather than strictly historical.

It is this content on the two world wars which throws into sharpest relief the biggest criticism of Past Imperfect: its Ameri-centrism. With a few exceptions (like those on the Roman world), the articles in this book are almost entirely about American history, and five of the six pieces on World War Two concern American contributions to that conflict (the other is a now-forgotten black-and-white Japanese film). You can't even say this is because Hollywood makes all the movies; there's a bulging stable of British war movies that, as far as Carnes' book is concerned, don't even exist. The imbalance goes beyond discussion of the Second World War, too; I was particularly surprised to note that Zulu, arguably the greatest war film ever made, was only mentioned in passing – and in a sidebar at that, not the main text.

Ultimately, Past Imperfect disappoints more than it excites, even allowing for the inevitable disappointments that result from trying to tackle this topic. But I found it amusing that, in seeing history as a predominantly American story, and World War Two in particular as an American experience, this book on the historical accuracies and inaccuracies of movies fell into one of the most obvious errors and clichés of American movie-making. show less

College is broken, and anyone with an ounce of insight knows it. I know it, as someone who attended two rather elite institutions, and who's attended and taught at a much more mundane one that nevertheless brags about its 'innovation'. Students are disengaged in their classes, with attitudes ranging from bored to outright rebellion. Despite decades of work on student support and learning, the state of higher education remains dismal. I doubt students remember much of anything from beyond the show more end of the semester. This status quo would be, well, accepted as much as we've accepted everything else in higher education, except that these days college is ruinously expensive, online courses are lurking to demolish the already precarious structure of academic labor, and as a society we're counting on college graduates to solve so many looming social and technological problems.

Carnes thinks he has discovered the solution, in his Reacting to the Past series of games. Reacting to the Past replaces several weeks of traditional curriculum activities (lectures, papers, etc), with an interactive simulation where students take on the roles of key figures around major historical events (The Trial of Socrates, The French Revolution, and many more), break into factions, and try and persuade the other students to favor their cause, with a little help from the dice as arbiters of uncertainty. In character speeches, debates, and papers drive the class, with students driven to research above and beyond their packets by the desire to impress their class.

When it works, it works astoundingly well. Anecdotes from students describe an almost obsessive level of engagement with the class, life-changing experiences that taught them about empathy, leadership, and resilience, and improvements in critical thinking, teamwork and subject expertise. Carnes also has a strong synthesis of the history and psychology of the failure of college, dating back the 1880s Ivy League, and the way in which his theory of "subversive play" describes why students drop out.

However, there's markedly little systemic research on the Reacting to the Past curriculum (just Stroesser et al 2009), and this book sometimes takes on overly defensive, hard-sell attitude. Fair, since it's wildly different than what colleges have been doing, but this may turn off some people.

My more substantial criticism comes from the serious direction of tabletop roleplaying game theory. While I haven't had a chance to delve deeply into a Reacting to the Past unit, from what I understand, it's a cross between a GURPS source-book and a history course reader. I'm a strong proponent that System Matters in tabletop games, and there have been a lot of impressive work done since the mid-90s on system design, particularly lighter systems for narrative play. The second, related criticism, is that I play a lot of RPGs, I consider myself pretty good as a GM, and I've seen a lot of games utterly fall apart. With the much bigger and messier historical simulations of Reacting to the Past, I'm sure there's a lot more places for things to get derailed, and I hope Carnes is engaged with the messy details of the simulation in his guidebooks for teachers.

That aside, this is a serious criticism of college as practiced today, a strong theory as how to improve it, and an extremely impressive collection of anecdotes. In a worst case scenario of just 1% of Reacting to the Past students having the kinds of experiences that Carnes describes, implementing this curriculum is the only ethically sound choice for educators. show less

This book presents a fascinating historical study of the golden age of fraternal initiatory organizations in the late 19th Century in the U.S. During that period, more men were attending Masonic and quasi-Masonic lodges each week than were attending church services. Ritualistic lodge work was sought out by as much as 40% of the adult male population.

In Secret Ritual, Carnes leavens substantial historical data with dramatic vignettes of initiatory ritual and fraternal socializing from the show more period. He also provides some fascinating and suggestive theories about why lodges were so overwhelmingly successful in that period, as contrasted with their earlier marginality, or their later fading from view.

The book does include many scholarly exposures of ritual from the 1800's, from a wide diversity of orders and societies, but the approach is sympathetic and intellectual. There is no secret-mongering, despite the title. I recommend it to anyone seeking to understand the place of Masonry and similar organizations in American society. show less

A collection of essays by historians discussing specific historical movies! In general, each (short) essay talks about the Actual History, the history as portrayed in the movie, the historical context in which the movie got made, and often downstream effects the movie's depiction of history has had. An entertaining read and easy to dip into and out of.