Book Reviews

A selection of book reviews by Ged Martin

I believe that book reviewing is a very important part of scholarship.

In modern academic life, there is far too much pressure to publish, and far too little encouragement to engage in the dialogue and debate that is part of reviewing.

But the reviewing of books can appear an unfeeling enterprise. An author spends years working on a text which a reviewer may seem to dismiss in a few hundred words. I have experienced both ends of the process.

Hence I preface these reviews with a general word of salute to all the authors whose work is discussed. I hope they will take my occasional reservations in the spirit intended.