Review of Alan Dundes (ed.), 'International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore'. Lanham, Boulder New York, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, Publishers, Inc., 1999. Pp.xiii, 255. ISBN (cloth) 0-8476-9514X; (paper) 0-8476-9515-8.

Abstract

This excellent anthology is at once seen to be a sine qua non, an impeccable compilation of some of the best European and North American cultural and intellectual history in the very best sense, an overview of several discipline-identifying and attitude-shaping thinkers, each important to his own time and place and hugely supportive of the emergent discipline. Further, the extracts themselves have from the editor very informed biographical, bibliographical and theoretical comments cannot but enlighten the users of the book, whether at an introductory course level or at a much more advanced or comparative one. Amongst other bonus qualities to the whole there are: the illustrations of the personal and national bonds/contacts that so quickly made folklore an international discipline; details of the scholars backgrounds that enforce the innumerable literary social and anthropological facets of folkloristics, numerous details that will appeal to both student learner and advanced scholar alike and a richness of editorial comment which can only come about from much experience of teaching and an infectious enthusiasm for the discipline as it has developed more formally over some two hundred years. And the selected essays or extracts are supported by an imminently sane and wide-ranging bibliography of 'Suggestions for Further Reading in the History of Folkloristics' (pp.245-252).