Jeffrey Richards's article demonstrates that a confusion common in the popular press has emerged in academia (Soapbox, THES, June 16).
This is encapsulated in his opening sentence: "Hollywood is at it again - rewriting history." Hollywood has never (re)written history. The product Hollywood produces is fictional mass entertainment, occasionally using mock-historical plotlines or settings. This practice has a history dating back at least 400 years. Historians who object to Hollywood's "historical inaccuracies" might follow the example of the reaction of many Scottish historians to the Braveheart phenomenon: watch the film, welcome any additional interest the film brings and lead those with sufficient interest to a more accurate assessment of the historical context.
Alternatively, they could boycott all Hollywood films and watch films from outside the US, in the hope that other nations' film industries might develop the financial resources to share their own historical inaccuracies and restore some balance. While the replacement of UK sailors with US ones in the film U571 is certainly tactless, arguments about its historical accuracy are an irrelevance.
R. P. Wells. Department of Scottish history. University of Edinburgh