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09 August 2007
John Keegan's "The Face of Battle" and Agincourt
Having listened through Keegan's "A History Of Warfare" from the Huntington Beach Library about three times over the past six years, to avoid the "drivvel" from my car radio, I decided that it was time to get into some of Keegan's other works and read some of them. I bought the "Face of Battle" because I saw that it had a section relating to the battle at Agincourt, Oct 25, 1415. I recalled several dramatizations that I had either heard or seen of the Shakespearian play "Henry V" that wss probably written about 180 years after the battle at Agincourt (give or take a few years) and thought it would be interesting to find out what the real story was.
I was not disappointed in Keegan's presentation. Keegan's chapter on the battle reads like the screen play of a major hollywood production after it has been polished and released, but with a focus and careful examination of the battle itself. The productions of the works of Shakespeare's Henry V, as great as they have been, including the recent efforts on TV, did leave a lot out, but that is perhaps explained by the fact that the past theatrical presentations focused more on Henry, his counterparts and the politics of the time. Keegan brings the reader, with him, out onto the field of conflict and takes the risk of venturing into the thoughts of warriors who were there as to what may have been running through their minds, and the reasons for why the unexpected sequences of events actually happened. I expect that the rest of the book will be as interesting.