by Jon Lackman | 22 May 2007 | Books, Teaching
In the January 2007 Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Jeffrey Weidman reviews the recently released 7th edition of Janson, titled Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition, placing it within the context of “the lineage of English-language art history surveys in America.” The editor of the new edition, Sarah Touborg, abandoned “the stylistic/formalist approach, which had sustained it for over forty years, in favour of a contextual approach,” “hiring six respected art historians to re-conceptualize and rewrite the text of the 2004 edition.” Touborg claimed in The New York Times that just one-quarter of the text was rewritten. “One can only assume that [this] statement … was intended as damage control.” This “recent edition is a good book. But the publishers’ decision to align it with and market it as the most recent edition of Janson not only does a disservice to the Jansons but undercuts and devalues the considerable work of the six authors whose book this really is.”
