The
monographer supplies accurate identifications of sp ecies and responds to questions about the plant groups of his or her speciality, thus providing an often underestimated service toward understanding evolutionary patterns in order to better classify, comprehend, and communicate about plant diversity.
Those who do address a larger audience--Martin Malia or Richard Pipes come to mind--not infrequently find themselves isolated from the mainstream, "non-belongers" in the words of the latter, and for their part sometimes rail against the
monographers, "brick-makers without an architectural vision." (9) Hosking, although he too can make bricks, is less a historian's historian and more interested in larger vistas and big interpretations.
Little interest has been dedicated to the issue of film music by former
monographers of Kubrick, so Rasmussen definitely fills a gap here.