Not exactly a history of the footnote, but a history of the historical footnote, or of footnotes as a symptom of being a respectable historian - later, a requirement of being a professional historian. Much is obscure to the non-historian. Grafton delicately reminds one of this by describing the ability of Italian historians to offer insult by omitting a reference that only those in their particular clique know to expect.
The rhythm of the book is pleasant for an amateur, though; it goes backwards in scallops - starts with current practice, says moreorless ~All this is of course due to the work of Ranke~, describes Ranke's scholarly evolution in its chronological order, winds up ~but of course Ranke was not as original as he claimed~, continues the pattern of orderly forward progress interrupted by great backward leaps. If I knew enough about his subjects to have come up with the earlier cases on my own, this might be a series of happy resolutions, or it might seem like unneccessary manipulation of a naturally more simple story. Can't tell.
Of footnotes in general:
He had to agree that the provision of documentation was more likely to provoke dissent than assent from a modern reader. Cited documents necessarily suggested that a problem could be solved in ways other than that chosen by the historian.
One can read the whole thing with one's mind on blogging and online discussion and directed links etc., but I don't thnk it's worth it to do so, unless you're actively seeking historical analogies. There are lots of vivid cultural battles that were fought partly in terms of whose histories were believed and on what grounds, if you are so seeking. I best like 's Historical and Critical Dictionary, which Grafton gloriously describes as only a thin and fragile crust of text on which to cross the deep, dark swamp of commentary.
Bayle was an exiled Huguenot who fell out not only with the obvious Catholic power in France but with at least one Protestant institution. He set out, early in the 1690s, to provide a dictionary of all the mistakes in other works of reference, above all those in the vastly popular Grand dictionnaire historique
...Anything the reader learned elsewhere and did not find contradicted in Bayle would be true.
- oho, no wonder he irritated his allies, but one does see modern applications. Happy story, actually, the project made him a living and sold spectacularly well.
I am left curious about the form - let alone the history - of footnotes or their equivalent in classical Chinese scholarship. The nearest reader of any kind of Mandarin hypothesizes verba interlinearis, but cautiously. Maybe has covered it.
ISBN: 0-674-90215-7
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