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Reading this right after the Kohn one, it's impossible not to compare. This one covers much of the same ground but in more detail, it is less didactic and more centered on texts. I enjoyed it well enough but did find some passages tedious. I think it is more interesting for people deeper in the material; less beginner friendly.

Fascinating seeing how the academic research and writing process worked before personal computers and the internet. Even if much of the more specific advice in this book is obsolete in the digital age, it is still worth knowing e.g. the logic behind a bibliographical entry (even if nowadays you'll get Zotero to generate it for you). The more general, broad advice on how to write, how to find a topic, what attitude to have towards your work and others' works that you cite, etc, is still applicable today. Eco uses tons of examples, real and fictional, that really help get an idea of what a dissertation in the humanities actually is. They help make the whole book tangible and entertaining. Good book all in all, would recommend to pretty much every humanities student.

I read this book as research for a class. It serves as a good thorough intro to the history and contents of Daoism viewed as a still-ongoing current of religious practice. The editing is pretty bad in this edition, there's a lot of typos. I didn't find that too distracting though.

Reading this for class

I am still re-reading it, obsessing over paragraphs, taking notes and drawing diagrams, etc. Haven't worked this closely with an entire book before. Told myself I would wait until I have gained "enough understanding" of the text before I write a review, but I realize now that's not a smart goal to set. So here's a few sentences. This is a very dense text. You can read it multiple times and unlock new layers of meaning each time. Sometimes a little Nebensatz will contain multitudes. There's little dialectical movements to be found all over and it's always fun to spot them. The prose is beautiful and precise. I can't explain my current obsession with this book (and with Teddie in general) but it is what it is.

I didn't understand everything but I finished this book with a better understanding of the definitions of ideology, the history of the term and idea, and some specific things like the positivism dispute, than I had started it. So, full success. Will definitely revisit parts of it when needed, no need to ever re-read it back to back.