This is probably a bit nitpicky

[oursin]

But I was a bit put off a book on a subject in which I have a significant amount of interest and a little knowledge myself, in the first chapter, for perhaps rather pedanticly demanding reasons.

The book is a huge overview of a vast subject and I do give it points for being about the Actually Quite Complicated and the Not Unchanging Through Time, srsly, which I can see going on from the get-go -

- but I was just a bit thrown, when there was a substantial passage talking about a certain kind of primary source, with which, my dearios, I happen to have some acquaintance, and lo, they were bringing the 'this happened earlier than some people think'. And discussing not only the nature of these sources but particular ones -

- and behold, when I turned to the endnotes to see where they had consulted these and whether they were ones I had personal acquaintance with -

- all the cites were to published literature by other hands.

There is nothing wrong with synthesis particularly in such a huge subject as this where people have done their nerdery niche scholarship on some very specific aspect.

But I still depose that if you have been going through works of literature looking for relevant allusions, YU no get hands on with manuscripts, of which, I concede (she concedes) there are a plethora and this could have taken even more years than this project did take (I seem to recollect was it Elizabeth David on the history of ices where that happened?): on another paw a lot of these are now digitised?

I expect I will persist because there is a strong level of analysis besides the 'fascinating anecdote' stuff, but I am just a little disappoint.