Truth in Publishing

Speaking of amusing front matter, I enjoyed the following, the first paragraph of the preface of a major American political theorist’s first book:

This book began as a doctoral dissertation, which is warning enough for the experienced. To the usual faults of dissertations I have added other defects, nurtured in the intervening years and perfected by revision. It is pretentious even by the standards of political theory; and since theorists must, like Jacob, wrestle with gods and men, those standards are far from mean. It is intolerably long. Let it stand that I have provided myself the weak excuse of recognizing such faults and forewarning the reader.