The first assignment will be a 5 page review of a scholarly
book on a person, region or phenomenon concerning Europe or its overseas
connections in the period 1400-1800. It is worth 10% of your
course grade, and it is due on September 24.
You may choose any book you wish, as long as it meets two criteria:
1. It must be relevant to the course (see first
paragraph above)
2. It must be sufficiently scholarly to have foot
or endnotes and a bibliography. (If a book has no notes but an
extensive discussion of sources in the bibliography, you may show it to me
to see if it qualifies).
As a guide to possible books, see the attached list of “Suggested Research Directions.”
A few words on what you are trying to achieve in the book review. You are not primarily summarizing your book. Rather, you are analyzing it and evaluating it. All historical information comes to us as a series of reports that may or may not be true. Even true reports aren’t the whole picture. If you want the best picture of the past possible, you have to be able to evaluate those reports.
A book review must identify both the topic and the purpose of the book. In some cases an overall thesis is clearly stated; in others the purpose and emphasis may be a little harder to define. However, until you do indentify why the book was written, you will not be able to begin writing your review.
Second, you will need to analyze how the author implements his or her purpose: what arguments, what theoretical perspectives, and what kinds of data the author uses to accomplish that goal. You will also want to decide whether the author has done a good job, and why or why not. This needn’t result in one overall judgement: a book may be excellent in one respect and a bit lacking in others.
For more detailed guides to writing your review, I recommend
the following web sites at the University of Toronto and the University of
Calgary:
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/bkrev.html
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~hexham/study/bookreview.html
You may also find it useful to look at academic book reviews in print periodicals in the library, or at various on-line sites. Your review will not be exactly like these reviews -- they are aimed at professional academics, while I think yours should be aimed at your fellow students -- but they may give you some idea of how to proceed.
If by some chance you find a review of your book, please cite that review and show your reader (me, but also that notional fellow student) how you used it.
Two sites for on-line reviews:
H-Net (History network in the USA):
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/
The Medieval Review
http://www.hti.umich.edu/t/tmr/
Also see our own library’s selection of e-resources, which
are more extensive all the time:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/library/njournal.htm