Europe's Reformations 1450-1650 (Critical Issues in History)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book with a flaw
Review: This is a truly excellent book which has unhappily and regrettably and, in my opinion, a totally avoidable flaw. This book, except for the flaw, richly deserves five stars. I shall first address the flaw. In a word this book is plagued by far too many notes, which are collected at the back of the book and to which the reader must turn each time a note is indicated. The book is 300 pages long and it has 938 notes. This is an average of slightly more than three notes per page, but when one considers that there are illustrations on some pages and that some pages have no notes, one can see that many pages have six or seven or more notes. I counted 12 notes on one page. A long time ago I read an essay in which the author compared having to look at notes in a book to having to answer the doorbell on one's wedding night. Certainly in Professor Tracy's otherwise superb book, the newlyweds would have neither rest nor bliss. It is distracting to have to turn to the back, read the note, return to the page of text and have to find one's place and then back up a bit to pick up the context. In my view, and I studied the notes closely, not less than two-thirds and probably three-quarters could have been woven into the text with very little violence to it, and it would have made the text ever so much more readable. And I want to say that there is a great deal of information in the notes. Having said all that, I wish to emphasize that this is truly an excellent work on the various reformations in the period 1450 to 1650 which is one of the most important eras in recent history and which gave rise to the Europe that we know today. Professor Tracy is a superb writer. His prose is readable and comprehensible. The book reads easily and well, and at the same time Professor Tracy gives the reader an absolute abundance of information, including insights into some of the leading players which give the reader the ability to view them as people and very human people at that and not just cardboard cutouts on the backdrop of history. I rather suspect from Professor Tracy's ability to write readable and current English that his lectures are as interesting and exciting as his book, and I quite envy the students who have the opportunity to take his courses. I am in hopes that my criticism will reach him, and that together with his editors he will weave the 938 notes or at least most of them into the text for the next edition of his book. This book should be read and will be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in political and religious patterns of today's Europe and how they got that way. Despite the flaw I have enjoyed the book immensely, and my knowledge of the subject is the greater for it.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book with a flaw
Review: This is a truly excellent book which has unhappily and regrettably and, in my opinion, a totally avoidable flaw. This book, except for the flaw, richly deserves five stars. I shall first address the flaw. In a word this book is plagued by far too many notes, which are collected at the back of the book and to which the reader must turn each time a note is indicated. The book is 300 pages long and it has 938 notes. This is an average of slightly more than three notes per page, but when one considers that there are illustrations on some pages and that some pages have no notes, one can see that many pages have six or seven or more notes. I counted 12 notes on one page. A long time ago I read an essay in which the author compared having to look at notes in a book to having to answer the doorbell on one's wedding night. Certainly in Professor Tracy's otherwise superb book, the newlyweds would have neither rest nor bliss. It is distracting to have to turn to the back, read the note, return to the page of text and have to find one's place and then back up a bit to pick up the context. In my view, and I studied the notes closely, not less than two-thirds and probably three-quarters could have been woven into the text with very little violence to it, and it would have made the text ever so much more readable. And I want to say that there is a great deal of information in the notes. Having said all that, I wish to emphasize that this is truly an excellent work on the various reformations in the period 1450 to 1650 which is one of the most important eras in recent history and which gave rise to the Europe that we know today. Professor Tracy is a superb writer. His prose is readable and comprehensible. The book reads easily and well, and at the same time Professor Tracy gives the reader an absolute abundance of information, including insights into some of the leading players which give the reader the ability to view them as people and very human people at that and not just cardboard cutouts on the backdrop of history. I rather suspect from Professor Tracy's ability to write readable and current English that his lectures are as interesting and exciting as his book, and I quite envy the students who have the opportunity to take his courses. I am in hopes that my criticism will reach him, and that together with his editors he will weave the 938 notes or at least most of them into the text for the next edition of his book. This book should be read and will be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in political and religious patterns of today's Europe and how they got that way. Despite the flaw I have enjoyed the book immensely, and my knowledge of the subject is the greater for it.