Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

His research suggests that the ability to play complex games together, and to help others learn the rules of a game, represents the essence of what makes us human—something he calls “shared intentionality.”2

Up until today, very few of the products of our economy and technology have served the aforementioned needs. Not only are our needs for play, exploration, and wonder underfulfilled, but great anxiety and struggle accompany even the meeting of our physical needs.

Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.

This book is an extended argument for that kind of clue: a folly, dismissed by many as a mindless amusement, that turns out to be a kind of artifact from the future. This is a history of play, a history of the pastimes that human beings have concocted to amuse themselves as an escape from the daily grind of subsistence. This is a history of what we