ED: Blake, as Aaron (Big Dady) Weaver said of Garrett's latest book in the post just before yours "most people are probably not interested in cozying up to a 800 page book." And yet you suggest that Garrett omits far too much. Writers and publishers to be profitable have to consider what audience they want, need and hope to reach. Not always are these three the same.
Personally my first problem with large books is they are expensive, secondly due to my arthritis I have real difficulty handling them and thirdly few writers write well enough to hold my attention for more than an hour at a time . If I did come across what I believed was an excellent 800-900 page history of Baptist that I found interesting enough to purchase. I would literally cut it up and rebind it into two or three volumes.
I tend to think it is a blessing that The George and Dockery's edited work and Brackney's Life and Thought. Compliment each other as well as they do. I will not however venture a guess as to how much of the the gigantic iceberg called Church History they cover. I do think we are agreed that Baptist History alone does not account for any vast portion of the visible tip. So I am content to keep on reading and buying ones that come to my attention only if they seem to offer some new perspective, especially as they pertain to my personal interest.
I have no idea how many books on Baptist history that i have in my personal library. As guide posts I have several of Leonard's, and some as old as an original
Memorials of Baptist Martyrs By J. Newton Brown, American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1854 and have our host, Bruce Gourley's, newest book on order. I have to admit I have none other than a few missions books and American histories that address Baptist in other parts of the world with less than great depth. And worse I have generally skimmed over those parts rather hurriedly. I may need to return to some of those missions books. How ever I am not a Historian. I am a generalist and the closest I have come to being an expert in any thing church related was in Singles Ministry,( my first love) and I have not been very close to that area in the past eight or more years. Or in other words since my wife became a pastor.