The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to how a professional historian reviews books he or she might use or recommend to his or her colleagues. You will write a 2 to 3 page paper (double-spaced) discussing your chosen book. In this paper, you should place it in its historiographical context and discuss its worth in the field.
Please use the questions on the back of this page as a guideline in your writing and reading. These are not the only things you should aIDress, but they give you a place to start.
I am happy to look over drafts before the paper is due!!
? What was the author’s purpose in writing this book?
o Do they have an underlying reason behind choosing this subject (i.e.: family history, personal experience, etc)?
o Do they have an objective in writing in this particular way about this particular subject (i.e.: is it a response to another historian’s work on the subject)?
o Is this a subject on which they are greatly informed or one outside their usual field (i.e.: is this a culmination of a life’s work, or just something that interested them)?
? Is the historian’s thesis clear and do they support it well?
o What is their methodology (are they a military historian, social historian, etc)?
o What kind of materials do they use (public documents, first-person accounts, biographies, etc) and how do they use them?
? Is the book an interesting, useful, and accurate treatment of the subject?
o Were there any blatant errors? Anything relevant you might have aIDed, or irrelevant that you might have removed?