Historian's Commentary
In recent years many academics have questioned the accuracy of Isaac's writings. Dan Wylie, an academic at Rhodes University has asserted that Isaacs deliberately exaggerated the extent of Shaka's brutality in order to boost the sales of his and of Flynn's books.
Another historian, Stephen Gray, also questioned the accuracy of Isaac's writings. In his commentary on the writings of Charles Rawden Maclean in The Nautical Magazine, he notes that Maclean made no mention of Isaacs at all. He also conjectures that it was Isaacs who gave Maclean the name "John Ross" because he could not remember Maclean's real name. Gray is scathing of Isaacs to the extent that when comparing the writings of the two men he wrote "The differences between Maclean's and Isaac's accounts are so glaring that one is forced to ask which of the two is plain lying."
Read more about this topic: Nathaniel Isaacs
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