Summing up the history
Why is it that a large amount of non-fictional books use 50-60 pages, if not more, on summing up the history of the field? Why can’t they just use 10 pages on the exact details that justifies the book? Or just sum up the relevant history in just 10 pages? Or at least just guide the user to skip those initial pages if he has read something similar before? (Which is most likely)
When the field of the book is about something related to computing, there is a 99% chance that you’ve read the same bla bla in another book. But you still keep on reading all of the 50-60 pages in the belief that something is coming out of this repetition. That the authors wrote it for highlighting something special. I just finished reading such a chapter, and again I have come to the same conclusion: that chapter was useless for me – the authors didn’t highlight anything else than the rest of the authors in the same field has done before. They even had the same perspective on the history of the field that all the other authors have had.
Instead of describing the history, then use the same pages with the distinct purpose of defining the book’s paradigm. This is what is needed: some self-critique. What can I use the book for and what can’t I use the book for. Set the limits of the book.
Could it be because the author gets paid by the number of pages written instead of by the number of copies sold?
Well – I hope the history of beginning a book by summing up the history is soon to be history!