Steven M Poole

The Edge calls Trigger Happy a "seminal piece of work." For the first time ever, an aficionado with a knowledge of art, culture, and a real love of gaming takes a critical look at the future of our videogames, and compares their aesthetic and economic impact on society to that of film. Thirty years...

Why can’t a wargame be anti-war? Why does “gamification” spit on the downtrodden? And why do so many videogames take the form of boring jobs? Investigating the aesthetics, politics, and psychology of modern videogames, the mini-essays in this long-awaited follow-up to 2000's Trigger Happy are an edi...

What do the phrases “pro-life,” “intelligent design,” and “the war on terror” have in common? Each of them is a name for something that smuggles in a highly charged political opinion. Words and phrases that function in this special way go by many names. Some writers call them “evaluative-descriptive...

We have become obsessed by food: where it comes from, where to buy it, how to cook it and—most absurdly of all—how to eat it. Our televisions and newspapers are filled with celebrity chefs, latter-day priests whose authority and ambition range from the small scale (what we should have for supper) to...