You remind me of my younger self. Your case is perhaps more exacerbated than mine as you are reading into a cultural history that differs from your own. I came into into academic philosophy sideways in my late 20s. I had been a tradesman and after an industrial injury I had to completely restart my career. I ended up with a philosophy doctorate but the beginning of my journey was an undergraduate degree in Asian Studies. During this degree I became interested in philosophy and sought to educate myself reading exactly the same book that you are currently. I had exactly the same problem that you are having. In my case I attributed my situation of never having heard of William of Malmebury or Ionia to the fact that I had grown up in a house without books and had until the age of 28 never knowingly encountered anyone who had studied further than secondary school. When Russell referred to Louis the Pious or the university at Bologna I thought he was using a shorthand that all his readers were in on except me. Like you, I attempted to read backwards into Russell’s anecdotes and namedropping to ensure that I fully understood what was probably obvious to every other reader.

For roughly a year I struggled with Russell - and his constantly namedropped antecedents - making mountains of notes on each chapter chasing up references until I got up to the chapter on Nietzsche. Alongside the reading relevant for my undergraduate degree Nietzsche was the only thinker that I was reading alongside Russell to address my sideline interest in philosophy. I was shocked to see Nietzsche treated so irresponsibly and to be virtually dismissed from relevance. Russell’s spell on me was immediately broken. Was every chapter I had read so far as biased? Have I been wasting my time? Should I have started my interested in philosophy with another text?

With hindsight I think the answer to these three questions is no. However, with the breaking of this spell I was able to remove myself enough from The History of Western Philosophy to ask myself why I had frantically studied this book the way in which I had. I realised that I had been motivated, in part, by a large feeling of inferiority. The inferiority of an uneducated working class man who was reading about something fascinating written in a way that seemed to be aimed at a readership who already had an entire literary and historical tradition under their belt. And all of the above has lead up to this point of asking you, to ask yourself, if you are perhaps in a similar boat. Does Russell piss you of because he is making you feel inferior to other readers due to his predilection to illustrate his arguments with a cultural history that is not your own? In a similar way to my inferiority that grew out of my own lack of education about these elements of this cultural history. I do hope not. I hope that I am wrong and you are merely annoyed with Russell’s shorthand of historical anecdotes and literary namedropping. Whichever is the case allow me to close by pointing two unrelated matters out.

The first is that Russell is merely the bearer of a style of writing which I privately label ‘Oxbridge old-boy vernacular’. This style is not necessarily scholarly and is not without its merits. That is, there is undoubtedly an element of helpful shorthand being deployed here. But also, in a popular text like this aimed at the non-specialist the occasional recognition of obscure references by a reader can give this reader a feeling of satisfaction. That he is erudite and clever enough to understand Russell’s finer philosophical points because he does know the fate of Daedalus’ son or is aware of how William of Malmesbury contributed to the writing of history. For some readers, I suspect, being ‘in on the joke’ in this way can be very self-affirming. I hope this observation is not too condescending. It is not empirical it is merely observational; I spent several years at the same institution as Russell and encountered this vernacular relatively frequently. It is a cultural marker, and particularly when used unnecessary - that is not to prove a point but merely for its own sake - can give relative strangers a feeling of community and allows them to subtely flatter each other.

The second point I want to make is that I approve of the way in which you have grown frustrated with this text. It speaks of someone who refuses to leave a text without the satisfaction of a deep understanding. While this style of reading is not without its burdens it can be extremely useful in scholarship. Where would philosophy or science be without the contribution of those who insisted on understanding a concept, a theory, a text, or an œuvre from the ground up. So whether or not you continue to read Russell, or decide on some other introductory text, he has, at the very least, exercised your predilection to endeavour to understand deeply. In my prejudiced and limited opinion the history of philosophy deserves such readers.