At one point in his narrative, Morris compares such accounts with the visual depiction in the famed Bayeux Tapestry, and then quotes himself on some of the terms he used in preceding sentences: "seems" "looks very much like" "appears" "as if." Though the battle took place was a "mere" 947 years ago, he has less to work with than even some ancient historians.Īnd yet Morris's professed uncertainty gives us confidence in him. History in such cases rests on the slimmest of written accounts, which often contradict each other.
In the case of the Battle of Hastings, an epochal event in the making of England, the amount we don't know is vastly greater than what we do. We know, for example, what Abraham Lincoln was doing on any given day, often on an hourly basis. But whatever questions may arise about that or any other battle in the American Civil War, the documentary record is immense. Lee was really thinking how many effective troops the two armies actually had at their disposal who really should get the credit for the Union army's retention of Little Round Top (and if that really mattered).
In that book, as in every account of Gettysburg, there are countless subjects for speculation - what Robert E. I didn't realize until after I had finished Marc Morris's The Norman Conquest that I had done so shortly after reading another book about a pivotal battle in the history of a nation, Allen Guelzo's new book on Gettysburg, The Last Invasion ( see my review here). His next book, A Brief History of the Modern Media, will be published next year by Wiley-Blackwell. His most recent book, Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions, was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press. Jim Cullen teaches at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York.
0 kommentar(er)
