Book Review Assignment REQUIREMENTS Format: Hardcopy (in-class) or Electronic (upload to Blackboard) Length: minimum 3-4 pages, double-spaced, typed DESCRIPTION First, it is important that we draw a distinction between a “book review” and a “book report”. Many of you have experience writing book reports in which your principal task is to summarize a book in a concise manner. In a book review, summarizing a book is just the beginning of your job and is really preparatory to the main task: critically appraising the quality and value of the book for our historical understanding. Critical appraisal operates on a number of levels. Most importantly, a strong book review will discuss how the reviewed work relates to other historical works or established historical knowledge more generally. The aim of this discussion is to identify the ways in which the book challenges or supports existing interpretations of a particular event, actor, or development in history, and therefore its significance for historical understanding. Less often, but equally important, some books introduce events that have received little to no attention by prior historians. Here you will want to appraise whether the author does a good job of connecting their study to related events and whether their study illuminates larger events or themes in United States history. Critical appraisal also includes an evaluation of the strength or plausibility of the claims made in the book by looking at the evidenced used to support them. This is not a question of whether we like or dislike a particular argument, but whether the historian mobilizes enough evidence to convincingly support their claims. A history book can challenge a common historical interpretation – for example, that slaveholding was the source of huge profits for southern planters – and stand to radically shift our historical understanding, but may ultimately fail because it does not mobilize sufficient evidence to make its claims convincing. Finally, critical appraisal should speak to the overall quality of the book as a whole. Does the book engage the reader, making them excited to reach its conclusion or is it dry and ponderous, requiring effort rather than pleasure to get through. The aesthetic quality of a book is important to its overall value – even if a book represents a major accomplishment of historical research, its significance will be greatly reduced if no one can bear to read it. Fortunately for you, all the books on our list are enjoyable! As with the other avenues of critical appraisal, when evaluating the quality of the work it is important to support your own arguments with evidence and examples from the text rather than simply stating your verdict. Was a book engaging because it quoted liberally from primary sources, allowing you to gain perspective on historical actors and the flavor of the past? Was it pure 1 drudgery because the author used a lot of words that are only found in dictionaries and referred to obscure theories that our only recognizable by specialists? You should describe which devices worked and why. Writings a strong book review begins not when you sit down to write but when you begin to read the book. To write a strong review you need to be an active reader that poses critical questions and records your reactions to key passages. These questions and reactions will form the material with which you build a strong review. STRUCTURE There is no single correct model for a book review, although all good book reviews contain the type of critical appraisals discussed above. Similarly, the structure of a book review can take many forms, especially as one becomes a more experienced writer. Below is a suggested structure that is easy to work with and will help you to organize your thoughts and their presentation. Please feel free to adopt it or attempt your own structure. Part I Briefly summarize the book. Describe the main subject and its scope in terms of time and place in history. Part II Identify and expand upon the book’s main argument or the overarching themes that emerge to interpret the book’s subject. Part III Discuss the book in relation to other history books, including textbooks you may have read, or to conventional understandings of United States history more broadly. Specifically state how the book challenges or supports existing historical knowledge, or introduces a subject that has received little or no attention. What does the book contribute to our understanding of history? Part IV Focus in on the quality of the book in itself. Does the author adequately support their claims with evidence? If so, what types of evidence or examples did you find convincing? If not, what kind of evidence or examples would you need to have seen to be more convinced? Briefly discuss the aesthetic quality of the book. Is the author’s writing style enjoyable? Does the narrative build anticipation or merely recount events. Be specific about what did and did not work and why. Part V Conclude by summarizing Part II-IV. Conclusions are important – they are the last chance you get to make an impression before you receive a grade!!!