Anachronisms

I so liked Johnson's Birth of the Modern that I gave copies to a lot of people. Great scope, yet still able to provide insights into small details. If there were any factual errors, I didn't catch them. Loved his notes and bibliography. His prose, was interesting and even lively without embellishment. Clear prose and persuasive of the author's point of view.

Sometime later I happened across Johnson's History of the American People, and snatched it up in anticipation of more good stuff. I pushed aside some reading that had a higher priority for me, and settled in for a good read. It was terrible. There were no insights into how the Revolution or the Civil War were tied into other events and trends of the day. The writer found no joy in his story, and that was reflected in the language. The book read like an undergraduate history text. For all that I didn't rush from notation to notes to discover other interesting material, and the bibliography could have been phoned in.

Even worse were the glaring errors that wouldn't be made by the poorest graduate student. He never seemed to realize that there were several important Confederate Generals named Johnson. There wasn't much clarity to be found anywhere in thought or in prose. The text seemed as if no one had proof checked it, much less checked to insure that the facts were straight. I never finished reading the book, and I still feel a bit betrayed by the promise of Birth of the Modern.

Re: Anachronisms


It's possible that she's knowingly applying the adjective retroactively, i.e. she's suggesting that the bed, had it been made a few years later, would have looked like what we understand as Jacobean. It's not that different from applying Freudian analyses to, say, Shakespeare, is it? It's still an anachronism, but maybe not quite a factual error.