I’ve seen some discussion online recently on this video, an attempt by French historians and reenactors to simulate what a rout would look like in classical Greek combat. This is really interesting! The question of whether the “impact” and “shock” described in ancient sources was physical or emotional has been prominent in the historiography in recent decades. A serious attempt to use experimental archaeology to examine our assumptions is very welcome – but the specifics of this event are not really the point of this piece. With that discussion came some unfortunate elitism, so let’s construct some strawmen to address instead.

       To get it out of the way, there are some perfectly valid criticisms of historical reenactment! The methodological flaws are easy to see. Reenactors do not respond naturally to stimuli or face the same pressures as real contemporary people would have done. In our example, these people are not in mortal danger, and they cannot act as though they were. The psychological pressures of combat – the single most important element – are not present. Any reenactment will also bring in a whole host of modern assumptions and frameworks that will harm its accuracy. The material culture is impossible to reproduce; in many cases, we outright don’t know what fabrics and metals would be present or the methods people would use to produce them. Even where we do, modern historians don’t have the same cultural knowledge or environmental context as real historical actors. It also must be admitted that many people do not treat reenactment as a fun hobby, but rather as fetishistic nostalgia allowing them to cosplay as SS Obersturmführer or Rhodesian officers with a degree of plausible deniability. Let’s be clear: these people are losers and we don’t need to think about them anymore.

       It’s important to keep those limitations in mind when thinking about historical reenactment, but that doesn’t change this fundamental point: reenactment is good history. It offers us the chance to do things in an interdisciplinary way that can put some of our assumptions to the test in a way that writing journal articles back and forth never could. We might not be able to accept the outcome as absolute fact, but historians don’t do that anyway; perfect reconstruction of the past is impossible. Useful insights can be acquired without reproducing painstaking authenticity, and historical reenactment allows us to understand history in a tactile fashion. It’s not just building empathy or greater understanding of conditions like exhaustion, either. Knowledge can emerge through material practice, and attempts at recreation allow theories to be falsified or declared plausible. A friend insists, through her experience in reenactment, that hoplites must have held their spears underhand rather than overhand. Is this true? We don’t know! But that perspective matters and is just as important to the debate as another round of examining Achaean potsherds.

       The question is not just a methodological one. We also have to ask ourselves: what is the point of history? It isn’t just about understanding the past, nor having a catalogue of trivia to employ on adoring friends. Historians might do that, but most people who study history do not become historians. It is the study itself that is essential. History is about understanding biases and feeling empathy. It is learning to think analytically, to formulate an effective argument, and then knowing how to deploy that argument concisely and convincingly. In a world increasingly dominated by techbros and STEM degrees, the study of history – and the skills that follow – is more vital than ever.

       Academic historians sometimes have contempt for history that is not peer-reviewed and published in journals or monographs, but the ecosystem needs it to survive. I didn’t become a historian because of E.H. Carr’s What is History or to deepen my understanding of Hobsbawm. There wasn’t anything in particular I wanted to know. I studied history because of the historical fiction of Christian Cameron and Conn Iggulden, late nights playing Sea Dogs and Rome Total War and Paradox Games, and getting sunburnt at airshows feeling XH558 howl past. Whilst I don’t imagine myself normal, this pathway to history is. To keep the study of history alive, we need to keep the whole ecosystem alive. We need historical fiction and games, we need retired hobbyists who write loving local histories, and we need public history like reenactments – not because it is academically rigorous, but because it is fun; it engages people and keeps the discipline alive.