The Book Review Landscape in American History: Specialization, Segmentation, Value, and History Journals
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The Book Review Landscape in American History: Specialization, Segmentation, Value, and History Journals Jean‑Pierre V. M. Hérubel1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Book reviews constitute an important component in the communication ecology driving and sustaining historical scholarship. This examination frames the discussion of the book review as artifact of communication. Within the context of its perceived value, its significance to historians, and its position within this ecosystem, the book review is further contextualized within a discussion of subject specialization. Additionally, the intellectual and professional position the book review occupies in this ecology, is broached, and tempered by historians’ observations concerning its relative status, purpose, and necessity for the historical profession. Further observations are articulated by university press directors within the context of the influence that book reviews exert within this communication ecology. Keywords Academic history · Book reviews · Journals · Disciplines Academic disciplines subsist on communication ecologies that sustain their respective activities, research, professionalization, as well as validate their existence. Academic history is but one of these academic disciplines that relies upon a strongly defined communication ecology that includes monographs, articles, and book reviews for effective intellectual consensus and scholarly rigor. The monograph is perceived and indeed, supported by the historical profession as the gold standard, more so than the article, the latter appearing in descending order of scholarly importance.1 Critically, where does the book review fit in this communication ecology; what is its raison d’être vis-à-vis the monograph, let alone the article? How do historians perceive the book review within this graduation of scholarly significance and importance to professionalization? For approximately a 50-year period, book 1 See Williams, Peter, et al. “The Role and Future of the Monograph in Arts and Humanities Research.” Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 61 (2009): 67-82.
* Jean‑Pierre V. M. Hérubel [email protected] 1
Libraries and School of Information Studies, Purdue University, HSSE, 504 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907‑2058, USA
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reviews have been questioned, supported, and criticized; however, they remain a steadfast feature in the dissemination of knowledge.2
Book Review as Communication Leviathan Each academic humanities and social science discipline, and representative subfield, including STEM disciplines publish book reviews. Their journals regularly publish reviews of books worthy of greater recognition, evaluation, etc. book reviews perform the necessary journeyman’s work so necessary in fields where books are seen as substantial and critical. From a spectrum of venues, including general outlets, e.g. New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books, to thought magazin
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