"And it is not just Hastings Jim, it is every historian"
Please do not be stupid, and do not insult our intelligence
Hastings' claim to faim is that he appears to have come up with something new - he has not and you haven't even put up anything new that he has said regarding this discussion.
Yo u maid exactly the same clams on the Irish Famine thread, and when it backfired in your face, went on to admit you had never read a book on the subject the same is obviously the case here..
This years run-up to the Armistice has been crammed full of programmes, real and dramatised dealing with the War - all, without exception, have presented the traditional view - Birdsong, The Wipers Times, The Village (which specifically dealt with recruiting and desertion), not to mention all of the recent documentaries ....
How can you possibly claim "every historian" - the whole point of Hastings' book is that it is said to challenge the orthodox view of history... if this is the case, who holds the 'orthodox view' if "every historian" already agrees with him? - how utterly stupid can you get.
You often whinge that everybody "makes these threads about me" - you make them about you with you utter stupidy, your self-confessed ignorance and your obsessive attention-seeking in dominating these thread with your ignorance and stupidity which invariably ends with your screaming your ignorance at an empty thread.
Clown!!   
Jim Carroll