Book Review Assignment
Charles Taylor: The Malaise of Modernity
Some general notes about writing a critical book review
A critical book review is more than a summary of the contents of a book. It is an attempt on the part of the reviewer to pull out what can be regarded as the most important parts of the argument the author attempts to make in the book, and subject them to evaluation according to standards that you the reviewer define as appropriate.
Students are often stuck with the question of what is an appropriate standard of evaluation. There is no one single standard, but some of the more common ones included internal consistency of argument, overall coherence of argument, importance of unstated assumptions to argument, historical provenance of argument, etc.
What does this all mean, Example I:
You are tasked with writing a critical review of Mary Wollstonecroft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women. In your review you discuss her aim of showing how conventional ideas of femininity as pleasing ornaments for men trap women in artificial and stultifying roles. After demonstrating how Wollstonecroft made her arguments, what kind of critical evaluation can be offered up? One line of argument you can make at this point is ask whether Wollstonecroft believes that the feminine self is entirely a social construction (no essential thing as a woman/man) or whether there remain natural differences between the sexes that lead to different behaviors/social expectations. Then the critical part—is she consistent in her views on this?
What does this all mean, Example II:
You are tasked with writing a critical review of Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. In your review you summarize Horkheimer’s pessimistic view of the colonizing power of instrumental reason (the type of reason associated with the rise of science and technology) and his view that modern society is destined to be stuck in a technological dystopia where we can no longer ask meaningful questions about value and the purpose of life. How to critically evaluate this argument? One line of assessment would question whether or not Horkheimer is here working with an unstated assumption, in particular, the assumption that the form of thinking (in this case instrumental reasoning) determines both content (ideas) and context (the social milieu in which we think and decide about things). If he is working with this assumption, is it a reasonable assumption? Or is it possible that context determines how instrumental reason is put to use, in which case there is no one single pessimistic future awaiting modernity?
How should the book review be structured?
A book review should have the same basic structure as any essay: an introduction which states the purpose/intent of the review, the body which contains both a summary of the text under review and the reviewer’s assessment of that text, and finally the conclusion which reiterates the main thesis the reviewer has attempted to establish. A guideline you can work with to help organize your review includes the following:
1. What problem or major question is the author you are reviewing trying to address in his/her work?
2. How does the author go about establishing his/her argument(s)
3. Are the arguments compelling and why? (here you are starting your evaluation)
4. If you think the argument is compelling are there supporting arguments that you can think of that buttress the author’s point?
5. If you think the argument is not compelling, explain the weaknesses (do not simply assert a counterposition—show why the author’s argument is weak).
6. Concluding statement with restatement of your thesis.
What to do with Charles Taylor’s book?
When reviewing Taylor’s The Malaise of Modernity, students will encounter an obvious problem. While it is a short book, he packs a lot of philosophical arguments in it. The best you can hope to do is to give a broad overview of the three “malaises” he identifies with modernity, explain why he thinks they are malaises to begin with, and then maybe focus on just one of them you feel most comfortable writing about—perhaps the one he spends the most of the book exploring, the fading of moral horizons. Your initial task is to succinctly tell the reader what Taylor sees as the problem. As a critical reviewer, you also have to tell the reader whether you agree this is a problem as Taylor describes it, and whether you agree with the direction he points to in dealing with the problem. And you have to give your reasons. If you are not sure at this point what you want to say, there is one hint I can give you. Go to an academic index for book reviews and type in Malaise of Modernity to find out what other reviewers have said about the book. I provide links to two common academic indexes: Web of Science and Social Science Abstracts.
http://apps.webofknowledge.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/WOS_GeneralSearch_input.do?product=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&SID=5DaLPUM9JsXpEIBM7IE&preferencesSaved=&editions=SSCI
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/ehost/search/advanced?vid=0&sid=293a351b-240f-4681-bdbe-4a433e9bf30e%40sessionmgr103
How is this assignment graded?
Because this is a fourth year class, and because it is a class in political theory, presentation is regarded as an important part of the overall sensibility of the paper. Style, composition, grammar are accordingly given weight in the final grade. As you review your paper, go over the checklist provided below:
1. Is the review organized in a conventional manner, i.e., introduction, body of argument, conclusion?
2. Have I clearly explained what the author intended in his/her book?
3. Have I clearly spelled out my reaction to the author’s argument—my evaluation?
4. Does my review contain a thesis (main argument) and is it clearly stated in the conclusion?
5. Do the paragraphs of my review flow from one to the other without contradiction or repetition?
6. Is the paper free of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors?
7. Have I avoided using overly-complicated sentence structures?
8. Have I avoided using complex words when simpler, clearer terms are available?
9. Have I made a point?
