Folks keep sending me articles about how Yale’s Vinland Map has “at last” been proven a fake. And now there’s word that “Markland” was found in a 1345 text.

Herewith, a thread on how none of this is surprising.

Also, why working with Hollywood can be iffy.

A thread. 1/ For those who don’t know, the Vinland Map was a big deal because it was claimed it was drawn ca 1440, before the voyages of Columbus, yet it recorded the coastlines of North America as discovered by the Vikings, who called the place Vinland. 2/

Hi there! As the Secretary-General of the US commission on Military History, I have thoughts on milhist in American colleges. In sum, I personally think this op-ed wildly misdiagnoses a very real problem. 1/

https://twitter.com/bopinion/status/1355822496663171074

Are there people in academia who dislike military history? Of course. For years we’ve been wanting to start a War Studies program at The Citadel. We have the personnel. We have the interest. 2/

With apologies to @adammansbach I present …

Stay the F*ck at Home

This virus is quite contagious.
Just look at the news from Rome.
But together we can get through this.
If you stay the fuck at home. (1/8) Emergency TP isn’t worth it.
Don’t make this the thunderdome.
Do us all a goddamn favor.
Just stay the fuck at home. (2/8)

Enormously excited about my TV debut tonight on #Contact for @Discovery (check your listings!).

And yeah I want to talk about it a LOT. But…

I need to take this moment to get something off my chest about mass murder and the weaponizing of history.

THREAD 1/x In the past days, white supremacists have murdered dozens of people. Among the texts that inspired this violence is the racist manifesto “Might Is Right or The Survival of the Fittest,” published in 1896 under the pseudonym “Ragnar Redbeard.” 2/x

On 16 June, 75 years ago, the gestapo dragged twenty-six members of the French Resistance into a darkened field between villages. As they were organized into small groups for the firing squad, a 16 year old boy wept, asking if it would hurt. This man was beside him. 1/x He was a small, unassuming man in his late fifties, and his name was Marc Bloch. He assured the boy that the bullets would not hurt, then cried out “Vive la France!” as the guns fired. 2/x

MEDIEVAL WARFARE: A READER, from @utpress, is now available for pre-order wherever you buy fine books. Here’s the Amazon link:

amzn.to/2G9BJ5S

And you know, if you’ve got a minute, I’d like to talk about it. (Thread 1/x) So this is a big book. They’re typesetting now — you can ignore that April release date — and I’m guessing it’ll be 400 pages when it’s done. The book may serve as protection against many medieval weapons of war, folks.

It’s HUGE. (2/x)

It's Super Bowl Sunday!

So let me run through a wee thread on why I love editing manuscripts. Football and folios for the win! #medievaltwitter #superbowl

(And, yeah, that's a medieval image of an ape looking up a man's ass to get your attention.) 1/x When folks ask me why I'm an English professor when my work seems like I'm a historian (that's me with an arrowhead) — well, part of the answer is that these distinctions are (or ought to be) irrelevant in Medieval Studies.

The other part of the answer is editing. 2/x