Review of Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution.
Book Review: If you wrote “book reports” in your younger days, this is a good place to begin defining a book review. In a book report, you typically wrote about a novel (fiction): you summarized the plot and then explained whether you liked the book or not, and why. You responded to the book as a consumer. In a book review, you understand that none of our books are novels, and you respond to them as a scholar. There is an element of summary. What is the book’s subject? What is its scope–limited by era, by topic, or some other factor? Yet summary is the least important part of the review. In a book review, you must explain the book’s argument, discuss the author’s method (what sources used? how well were they used? See below, for the questions of methods of sources for each book), and critique the book’s argument–how convincing? Other explanations that the author didn’t consider? Other sources the author might have used? How useful for historians, students of history, or history buffs? There is a set format for writing book reviews. Begin with the book’s bibliographic information at the top of the first page [Don’t use your computer’s “header” function for this, or it will end up on every subsequent page.] Put it exactly into this format:
Author First Last Name. Complete Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, year of
publication. Pp. number of pages. $price of book.
Example: Abraham Early. The Mughal World: India’s Tainted Paradise. London: Orion Books,
2007. Pp. xxiv, 420. $19.99.
The review itself should be 3-5 pages in length must include the elements discussed above: summary of subject and scope; discussion of the book’s argument, author’s methods and sources; and your critique of both argument and methods. “Critique” doesn’t mean you have to say something “bad” about the book; it simply means you assess the book’s strengths and weaknesses. While in middle school book reports, you might say that a book was “boring” or “hard,” in a book review such comments will mark you as an amateur and should be avoided. Keep in mind that your reader may not have read the book or be familiar with the history it addresses. Explain where you need to; use concrete examples where possible; keep direct quotations to a minimum. In a book review, you may cite with page numbers in parentheses, since it’s clear where they came from.
