Robert K. Merton's On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript - The Post-Italianate Edition, or, henceforth, OTSOG, is our (ostensible) topic for this issue's Passages column. [[What follows after this double-bracketed 'introduction' is a failure, an attempt to recommend this book by, in miniature, aping its style and form. In my opinion, it doesn't really work. I ask the reader who has ever enjoyed a book read because it was recommended in this column to bear with me through it, however, for there is a point to be made, and a remarkable book to recommend.