There is some pressure on commercial authors to minimise or remove notes. It’s thought they put readers off because they make books look too thinky, & of course higher page counts cost more to print & ship. But in an age when we all need to think critically & assess sources, this is disastrous.
I remember that they did this with the production credits on the Chris Morris series Jam, years ago. It's now a long dead link.
this link goes to an essay, not a bibliography. one can find this out by entering it, even if one does not have, or has not read the book. the fluff about this is a deflection, a strategic distraction that has nothing to do with the text itself.
I look at notes more now, as a casual reader, than I did when I was an under-grad.
I love the notes, but the best nonfiction I've read uses 20% to 40% of the page count on them. The fact they are taking the notes online means basically the cheapskates have won.
The same publishers wanting to keep costs down and profits up are attacking the Internet Archive
It is; the last thing we need is to dumb down even further.
BOOK TOO THINKY I NO READ
Notes are essential. Footnotes are the best.
Oh yes, big dislike.
I've some sympathy with the "putting readers off" thing. My first couple of books (pop history, though using archival sources) I very deliberately eschewed foot/endnotes as I wanted to emulate the experience of reading a novel.