Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Bibliographical Pitfalls
J. Linderski, review of Claudia Bergemann, Politik und Religion im spätrepublikanischen Rom (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992 = Palingenesia, 28), and Loretana de Libero, Obstruktion. Politische Praktiken im Senat und in der Volksversammlung der ausgehenden römischen Republik (70–49 v.Chr) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992 = Hermes
Einzelschriften, 59), in Classical Philology 90 (1995) 192–195 (at 194), rpt. in Roman Questions II. Selected Papers (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), pp. 520-524 (at 522; footnotes omitted):
Newer› ‹Older
Bibliography appended to the book is haphazard, avoiding the difficult and the technical, and it is infested by the belief "the newer the better," a tendency as pernicious as it is ahistorical: for it consigns to neglect great minds of the previous generations, and loses sight of the historical progression of our investigations. Frequently the book draws its information from the tepid tap of recent distillations, and not from the spring of the original masters. Unfortunately it is a familiar disease—for it also thrives in American graduate programs, together with another pest, the scholarly oligoglottism. Bergemann adduces modern literature only in German and English, one solitary entry in French, and none in Italian: not even a tiniest article.
