The Reenactor Post

About ten years ago, I read Tony Horowitz’s book, “Confederates in the Attic.” I remember it that at the time, some CW reenactors were upset at the book because they felt it made them look eccentric and a little silly. I didn’t think it was all that bad. After all, I know that I am eccentric and probably more than a little silly. While Horowitz poked fun at the reenacting community at times, it never seemed mean-spirited.  At that time, I was doing CW exclusively. In 2001, I got into WWII reenacting and I remember hearing that someone was doing a book about that aspect of the hobby.  So a few months ago, I heard of  “War Games”, an examination of twentieth century reenacting and reenactors by a scholar named Jenny Thompson, and I thought “oh, that’s the book they were talking about.” (I usually am a few years behind when it comes to books.)

I ordered the book from Amazon and eagerly awaited its arrival. When I opened it I was immediately struck by the negative tone of the review excerpts on the dust cover. A critic named Henry Allen notes that Thompson reports on “these quarrelsome and oddly self-loathing people,” and an anthropologist named Mark Leone says, “she shows us ordinary men who lead partial lives where their emotional emptiness is met through camaraderie in playing army. An empty America is the result.”

Not a good way to start out. Not only are we self-loathing, but we are apparently responsible for everything that is wrong with America. Considering that we are numerically a very small group of people, I would have thought that at least the crooked politicians and the gang-bangers would have come in ahead of us! Read More