For that, a professor has to seize the imagination. And the professional readers for Cornell University Press won't make them do it. On the other hand. One of the casualties of these years of market triumphalism is the ancient idea of the guild-a group of professionals who regulate themselves by standards, both internalized and externalized, formed and upheld by those whom they have apprenticed under. But despite the best attempts of some state legislatures, professors have held their guild intact.
More footnotes just mean more pages to print.
Here, it is the guild that beats the market every time. Rick Perlstein 's book on the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign will appear in the spring.