I actually liked Foster's book quite a lot, though my post on it predates my adopting the current post/notetaking format. Reading the roughshod post, I think I agree that Foster's book wouldn't have suffered from more attempts to suss out the extent to which popular readership was isomorphic with the popular consciousness in the Edo period, but it's quite hard to determine with any actual certainty--and at this point my response to people complaining about that indeterminacy is to ask why they think it matters, because I don't think it's as important as it's usually assumed to be, or at least, it's an unexamined assumption that is important.

I think the tranche methodology that Foster uses is actually quite effective, though it could have used a bit more of a through-narrative (but I think it's inevitable that such will be said about any tranche methodology). Berry was undoubtedly looking at some of the same sources, but Foster was reading for details, whereas for Berry the sheer volume and thingness of the sources is the main point. And she has the luxury of tenure, which allows her to be stylistically unusual. But yes, Berry is brilliant. And she has a real gift for engaging with sources on their own terms as well as on hers at the same time. And all this being said, yes, unequivocally, Foster's book could have been a better conversion from his dissertation.