Saturday, October 24, 2009

Debunking Shakespeare

According to the New York Times, a group of historians is applying new methods to military history, and one of the things' they've found is that Henry V wasn't. Or if he was, his victory at Agincourt wasn't. Or if it was, it wasn't all that important - that was merely Shakesperian agitprop.

Well, immortal agitprop, you'll have to admit.

The article contains a link to a database the historians are setting up with all the possible names of the soldiers of the 100-Year-War; so far, they've got 20,000 names, apparently. So I snooped around. As far as they know to tell, there were no soldiers in the 100-Year-War (1369-1453) with any of the following names: Cohen, Levy, Mizrachi, Atias, or Rabinowitz. (No Lozowick's either).

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