[BGB] Historical Literacy

[Jim Barbaro]

This is from an archived book review on Salon.com 
<http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2002/07/09/mussolini/index.html?pn=2> 
of R.J.B. Bosworth's biography of Mussolini entitled appropriately 
enough "Mussolini":

"Oddly enough, the story of this bizarre and influential figure winds 
up being a little tedious in Bosworth's telling. Dwelling too long on 
the trivia of party politics and government administration, 
first-time biographer Bosworth seems to lose touch with the human 
aspect of the life as Mussolini's power waxes spectacularly and then 
quickly drains away. Particularly off-putting is the degree to which 
Bosworth assumes knowledge of 20th century European history and 
politics. Quick: What was the Beer Hall Putsch? The 
Ribbentrop-Molotov pact? What was campanilism? Who was Marshal 
Lyautey and why should we care? Bosworth expects       you to know."

Oh, my God.
I admit I did not know who Marshal Lyautey was (I do now), but the 
others I did know and expect would the rest of the BGB list. 

(By the way, from <firstworldwar.com>:  General Hubert Lyautey 
(1854-1934), a colonial administrator and Marshal of France, played a 
key role in bringing down Aristide Briand's wartime coalition 
government in 1917 over his disagreement with cabinet support for 
French Commander in Chief Robert Nivelle's doomed 'Nivelle Offensive')


The critic continues:  "He also employs a sadistically eccentric 
vocabulary. It's one thing to remind readers how dim they are by 
using 75-million-lira words, but Prof. Bosworth keeps rapping us with 
his ruler by using each of the following, among other Latinate 
clunkers, lucubration, condign, irredentist, rumbustious, rusticate, 
pullulate."

Ooh, I seem to remember something called a "dictionary."  Oh, sorry. 
Too Latinate.  How about "word book thingy."

It's me, right?
And Salon.com is one of the better sites.
Oy.


Holding his head,
Jim
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