Year: 2001
Type: book-review
Abstract: At the most recent meeting of the American Historical Association, as I prowled the splendid book fair, I took advantage of the presence of so many editors to talk to some of them about their presses' abiding commitment, if any, to good writing.Among my interlocutors was a highly regarded senior editor at Cambridge.He told me that, at Cambridge, these days, close editing is a luxury furnished only on request.Most readers and most authors, should texts falter, no longer seem to care.In this case, that nonchalance comes home to grievous roost, for the volume weds Cambridge virtuesa clean text, a scrupulous and handy index, a page of capsule biographies of contributors, to a set of rather common Italian flawsfoggy argument, hermetic texts, and occasional spates of near- autism.For what we have here resembles that familiar Italian product, the con- vegno gone to print, but translated for English readers.Such ventures work best if guided, and even whipped, by a ferocious editor, but, when scholars, as here, are senior and hard to bully, it is a rare editor who has the stature, grit, and patience to pull it off.That said, the collection also has the virtues of Italian schol- arship: deep erudition, canny archival work, rich footnotes
Source: Quaderni d italianistica
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1978486939