No Longer Dreaming in Latin

I was asked the other day about the differences between researching Finding Atlantis and Vienna 1814. The first thing to come to mind was the nature of the source material. For Finding Atlantis, I used primary sources in a half dozen languages, including old Swedish, which Rudbeck wrote virtually all of his surviving correspondence and his 2,500 tome detailing his discoveries, the Atlantica. There were also a few (one hundred or so) letters in bombastic seventeenth century Latin that I translated, mainly “fan mail” to Rudbeck congratulating him on his work.

The Congress of Vienna also has a wealth of source material in a variety of languages – I used a half dozen on this book too, though not Latin or old Swedish. There were also more memoirs, diaries, correspondence, minutes of meetings, and many other valuable primary sources for recreating the daily life of the conference. More later, as we get closer to the book launch.