Link analysis, terrorism, and ‘Hamlet’
Since 9/11, lots of hard work has been done on “link analysis” — looking at who communicates with whom, who sends money to whom, and so on, as a way of detecting and delineating terrorist networks, nodes and points of vulnerability. David Ignatius makes this fact a key to his new novel, Bloodmoney. Now ...
Since 9/11, lots of hard work has been done on "link analysis" -- looking at who communicates with whom, who sends money to whom, and so on, as a way of detecting and delineating terrorist networks, nodes and points of vulnerability. David Ignatius makes this fact a key to his new novel, Bloodmoney.
Since 9/11, lots of hard work has been done on “link analysis” — looking at who communicates with whom, who sends money to whom, and so on, as a way of detecting and delineating terrorist networks, nodes and points of vulnerability. David Ignatius makes this fact a key to his new novel, Bloodmoney.
Now a Stanford professor of English is doing link analysis in literature. To my surprise, he is coming up with some interesting stuff on Hamlet:
” … of all the characters who speak to both Hamlet and Claudius, only two manage to survive the play (Moretti calls this part of the network the “region of death”). Or one notices that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the most famous pair of minor characters in all of Shakespeare, never speak to each other.”
Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1
More from Foreign Policy

America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose
Global war is neither a theoretical contingency nor the fever dream of hawks and militarists.

The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy
The reality of fighting Hamas in Gaza makes this war terrible one way or another.

Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now
In tying Washington to Israel’s war in Gaza, the U.S. president now shares responsibility for the broader conflict’s fate.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet
As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.