How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays

How to Write an Introduction

The purpose of this article is to explain how you put together the introduction to a book of essays, a philosophical treatise, or a collection of scientific articles, to be published, ideally, by a university press or its equivalent, all in accordance with the rules long established in the academic world.

In the paragraphs that follow I will clarify, as succinctly as possible, why an introduction must be written, what it must comprise, and how to list the acknowledgments: for skill in making acknowledgments is the hallmark of the thoroughbred scholar. It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts. Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always, somehow, be thanked.

In preparing this article I have drawn on a long and invaluable familiarity with scholarly publications; these have been brought to my attention by the Ministry of Public Education of the Italian Republic, the Universities of Turin and Florence, the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, and the University of Bologna, as well as New York University, Yale University, and Columbia University.

I could not have completed this work without the patient and impeccable collaboration of Signora Sa-bina, thanks to whom my study, which by 2 A.M. is reduced to an undefined mass of cigarette stubs and waste paper, every morning is found in acceptable condition once more. My special thanks also to Barbara, Simona, and Gabriella, whose efforts have saved my hours of reflection from the importune interruption of transatlantic calls inviting me to conferences on the most disparate subjects, alike only in being remote from my personal interests.

This article would not have been possible without the unfailing assistance of my wife, who, always ready with the reassurance that all is vanity, was—and is—able to tolerate the moods and demands of a scholar constantly obsessed by the major problems of existence. Her devotion in offering me apple juice, successfully passing it off as the most refined Scotch malt, has been an immeasurable and incredible contribution, documented by the fact that these pages have retained a minimum of lucidity.

My children have been a source of great comfort to me and have provided me with the affection, the energy, and the confidence to complete my self-imposed task. Thanks to their complete, Olympian detachment from my work, I have found the strength to conclude this article after a daily struggle with the definition of the intellectual's role in a postmodern society. I am indebted to them for inspiring an unshakable determination to withdraw into my study and write these pages, rather than encounter in the hall their best friends, whose hairdresser follows esthetic criteria that revolt my sensibilities.

The publication of this text has been made possible by the generosity and the economic support of Carlo Caracciolo, Lio Rubini, Eugenio Scalfari, Livio Za-netti, Marco Benedetto, and the other members of the board of directors of the publishing firm of L'Espresso. My special thanks to the business manager, Milvia Fiorani, whose continuing monthly assistance has allowed my research to go forward. That countless readers will hold this modest contribution in their hands is due to the director of the distributing services, Guido Ferrantelli.

Creation and revision of this text have been encouraged by Olivetti, which provided me with an M 21 computer. I would like to express my gratitude for the MicroPro and its Wordstar 2000 program as well. The text has been printed on an Okidata Micro-line 182.

I could not have made the lines above and below available to the English-language audience without the affectionate, constant insistence and encouragement of Grace Budd, Otello Venturovic, Michael Kandel, Martha Browne, and Dr. Ferdinando Adornato, who have sustained me with heart-warming and pressing daily telephone calls, informing me that the presses were rolling and, that at all costs, I had to provide the final footnotes.

Obviously, they are in no way accountable for the scholarly content of what appears on these pages; any defects in the present article, as in those of the past and the future, are my responsibility alone.

1987