Breakfast and Words

I could also say "a breakfast of words," as I so enjoyed reading this morning the introductory material to Thomas A. Bailey's book entitled A Diplomatic History of the American People, originally published in 1940.
Below I will include an excerpt from the Editor's Foreward, which explains, I think, why this book has been so attractive to me.

In recent years a certain academic language has taken off, and the readability of scholarly books has tended to suffer as a result.   This book, apparently, does not suffer this deficit.  In fact, I even carefully read every single name under the acknowledgements, something I rarely do.

Clearly, we have a situation in which our leaders are no students of history -- or of literature, either, for that matter.  How much is this costing the United States?  How much less of an esteemed and useful leader are we for this lack?  And how much do we as citizens suffer from our own lack of knowledge -- and wisdom?