Here one senses a theoretical imprecision hiding behind a bulwark of academic neologisms. On the other hand Warburg, ever the student of expression, was capable of writing masterfully witty digs and asides. He had little patience for sentimental aesthetes and could be both sharp and funny. David Britt's English translation captures Warburg's witty prose, bringing this engaging, zealous writer to life. For better or worse, Britt does unpack Warburg's more thorny German sentence structures and neologistic compounds, giving shorter and pithier English equivalents.
Clarity is gained at the expense of a certain stylistic verisimilitude.
He tends to favor the active voice over Warburg's passive constructions and takes the liberty of splitting some of the longer blocks of prose into shorter paragraphs. Yet the translation provides an undeniably valuable tool for English-speaking art historians and does an admirable job with an extremely tricky subject. Forster's lengthy essay introduces Warburg to the reader within a rich contemporary context. He rightly criticizes the tags and labels generated by the self-perpetuating Warburg industry while nonetheless stressing the modernity of Warburg's project. Forster also discusses the role technological innovations played in Warburg's modern library and writes at length about Warburg's trip to the western United States in 1895, showing how his interest in anthropology, primitive religions and the occult colored his research.