For parochial reasons (we have quite a large number of early editions of Machiavelli at Brown) I had a look at Jacob Soll's book and also, of course, our catalogue record for it. From an even narrower perspective I noted that the Library of Congress has provided no subject headings for Machiavelli (nor does that name appear anywhere else in the record), let alone Amelot de la Houssaie (or Houssaye), though they do note the presence of a bibliography of the latter's works; nor is the decidedly French orientation of the book made apparent.
LC's policy is never to revisit subjects, but perhaps an author could persuade them to do so, if it seemed to matter, by contacting ***@loc.gov. Here at Brown I added the following:
France|xIntellectual life|y18th century
France|xIntellectual life|y17th century
Machiavelli, Niccolò,|d1469-1527.|tPrincipe
Machiavelli, Niccolò,|d1469-1527|xTranslations into French|xHistory and criticism
Machiavelli, Niccolò,|d1469-1527.|xInfluence
Tacitus, Cornelius|xInfluence
Amelot de La Houssaie, Abraham-Nicolas,|csieur,|d1634-1706
Amelot de La Houssaie, Abraham-Nicolas,|csieur,|d1634-1706|vBibliography
Absent provision of subject headings, no keyword search relating to Machiavelli (for items not yet known to the searcher) would retrieve this book on the basis of its basic bibliographical listing. Only a keyword search on "prince" would have any relevance, but the result would be rather imprecise--the sort of thing that authors and publishers might want to take into account in naming books, and chapters of books. (I considered adding the names of the chapters to the record, but they do not include the specific keywords--names especially--that are needed.)
If LC follows through on its rumored desire to abandon subject headings, it will be especially critical for humanities writers and publishers to put the right words into our bibliographical systems--in their own languages, at least. No one, of course, reads foreign books...
RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : ***@BROWN.EDU
-----Original Message-----
From: SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing [mailto:SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rose
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 9:14 AM
To: SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Machiavellian Congratulations!
All SHARPists will be delighted to hear that Jacob Soll has won the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History (awarded by the American Philosophical Society) for his book "Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism" (University of Michigan Press).