The weapon of pedants, the scourge of undergraduates, the bête noire of the “new” liberated scholar: the lowly footnote, long the refuge of the minor and the marginal, emerges in this book as a singular resource, with a surprising history that says volumes about the evolution of modern scholarship. In Anthony Grafton’s engrossing account, footnotes to history give way to footno...
The weapon of pedants, the scourge of undergraduates, the bête noire of the “new” liberated scholar: the lowly footnote, long the refuge of the minor and the marginal, emerges in this book as a singular resource, with a surprising history that says volumes about the evolution of modern scholarship. In Anthony Grafton’s engrossing account, footnotes to history give way to footnotes as history, recounting in their subtle way the curious story of the progress of knowledge in written form.
Grafton treats the development of the footnote—the one form of proof normally supplied by historians in support of their assertions—as writers on science have long treated the development of laboratory equipment, statistical arguments, and reports on experiments: as a complex story, rich in human interest, that sheds light on the status of history as art, as science, and as an institution. The book starts in the Berlin of the brilliant nineteenth-century historian Leopold von Ranke, who is often credited with inventing documented history in its modern form. Casting back to antiquity and forward to the twentieth century, Grafton’s investigation exposes Ranke’s position as a far more ambiguous one and offers us a rich vision of the true origins and gradual triumph of the footnote.
Among the protagonists of this story are Athanasius Kircher, who built numerous documents into his spectacularly speculative treatises on ancient Egypt and China; Pierre Bayle, who made the footnote a powerful tool in philosophical and historical polemics; and Edward Gibbon, who transformed it into a high form of literary artistry. Proceeding with the spirit of an intellectual mystery and peppered with intriguing and revealing remarks by those who “made” this history, The Footnote brings what is so often relegated to afterthought and marginalia to its rightful place in the center of the literary life of the mind.
作者简介
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Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities at Princeton University, is the author of The Footnote: A Curious History, Defenders of the Text, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, and Forgers and Critics, among other books. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books.
目录
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Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Footnotes: The Origin of a Species
2. Ranke: A Footnote about Scientific History
3. How the Historian Found His Muse: Ranke’s Path to the Footnote
4. Footnotes and Philosophie: An Enlightenment Interlude
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Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Footnotes: The Origin of a Species
2. Ranke: A Footnote about Scientific History
3. How the Historian Found His Muse: Ranke’s Path to the Footnote
4. Footnotes and Philosophie: An Enlightenment Interlude
5. Back to the Future, 1: De Thou Documents the Details
6. Back to the Future, 2: The Antlike Industry of Ecclesiastical Historians and Antiquaries
7. Clarity and Distinctness in the Abysses of Erudition: The Cartesian Origins of the Modern Footnote
Epilogue: Some Concluding Footnotes
Index
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0 有用 一一 2018-08-28 21:52:06
艰涩难读,贡献了我整个周末。思想史活生生读出了社会史的感觉,哭笑不得。
0 有用 Sisyphbel 2023-12-14 04:20:05 美国
補標。這書特別棒! 當年給我觸動很大,讚嘆不已。
0 有用 Soo Yung 2013-09-26 10:11:25
非常有趣关于Footnote的历史书,从大的角度上来说也是学术史、文化史。题材上很吸引人,不过就是叙述比较散漫,东扯西扯的导致观点比较零散,但无法掩盖内容上的有趣。谈及的Footnote的重要性、Footnote与text的关系、Footnote的发展与时代背景、对Footnote做出巨大贡献的学者,Footnote的研究价值、Footnote与Authority, truth的关系,并涉及史学到... 非常有趣关于Footnote的历史书,从大的角度上来说也是学术史、文化史。题材上很吸引人,不过就是叙述比较散漫,东扯西扯的导致观点比较零散,但无法掩盖内容上的有趣。谈及的Footnote的重要性、Footnote与text的关系、Footnote的发展与时代背景、对Footnote做出巨大贡献的学者,Footnote的研究价值、Footnote与Authority, truth的关系,并涉及史学到底是叙述小说还是调查论据,是艺术还是科学的讨论,是说服他人的观点还是事实真相的罗列都非常很生动,虽然也都没什么结论。不过无论是Truth还是Ideas,这本书在学术领域上给了我很大的启发,并给我了一些可行的对Footnote的探索与思考方向,终归是非常有价值的。 Christine (展开)
0 有用 有毒的金苹果 2018-04-01 18:32:53
电子版B5H182
0 有用 支离疏 2007-10-22 12:05:23
Grafton这本书,虽然不象他对Scaliger的研究那样经典,但把一个小题目写得饶有兴趣,透视了现代历史科学在历史叙事与科学考证之间的张力。最精彩的引文是,脚注仿佛是正在床上做爱却被人叫下楼开门。想想自己写过的脚注成堆的论文,不禁哑然失笑。