Title: Writing Problematic
Review: There is no doubt that Wallenstein is a terrific piece of scholarship. Mann totally assimilated the huge primary literature on Wallenstein and presents a comprehensive narration of his life. Beyond this, Wallenstein is a detailed portrait not only of its subject but also of political life and war in central Europe before and during the 30 Years War. The drawback of this book is the writing style. While Mann may be the victim of poor choices by the translators, Wallenstein is written in a somewhat stilted and self-consciously literary style that reduces readability. In a book this long and with this much detail, this is a real drawback. A smaller defect is that this English language version was published without footnotes and bibliography, markedly reducing its usefullness.
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