A History of Reading in the West Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The content is wonderful! The book provides much insight to different reading practices and how they change through the years. But...
1. The footnotes need to be on the same page as the text. It is hard to keep your place when you constantly have to flip to the back of the book. Also, if the notes were on the same page, I could see whether or not I needed to read the footnote for more information.
2. Provide tranlations of foreign quotations. I don't know about you, but it has been a while since I had a foreign language course.
3. Some of the chapters could be better edited. For example, in chapter 8 ("Protestant Reformations and Reading"), contributing author Jean-Francois Gilmont needs to pinpoint dates more clearly. He mentions a twenty-year span in which the separation of the printed book from the hand-lettered book was finally completed, but says it happened soon after Luther preached against indulgences (p. 214). If Luther talked to the Archbishop of Mainz in 1518 about indulgences, isn't it logical that it was not in 1540 that the separation was complete?
4. The style of writing seems to jump from readable to dry. I know each chapter is by a different author, but is there any way there could be more fluidity from chapter to chapter?

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