ABSTRACT
In the political arena, games have been used time and again as media of visual communication and tools of diplomacy. Here. The author addresses questions as whether games have been of political importance in past times or whether politics influenced the development of games over time. First, it discusses games as media of visual political communication and propaganda in various periods and places. Then, it proceeds to the study of games as agents of political history and tools and mirrors of diplomacy. Apart from studying political and diplomatic uses of games, the author considers how playing games functioned in the past as an arena of “low politics”, or “politics from below”. Then he turns to how studying antigaming legislation might help the historian better understand how the authorities regulated, or at least tried to regulate, the citizens' gaming and gambling activities..
