Book Review Assignments
American Environmental History
Book reviews for this class ought to concentrate on an accurate, analytical two or three-page review. Obviously, this is more than merely a point by point description of what facts the book contains. The book will have a thesis or several theses. Part of your duty as a reviewer is to evaluate the thesis and how well the author utilizes the evidence to make his/her case. There is an additional important factor for the reviewer to consider —how well the book fits into the broader literature on the subject.
In order to write a quality review, you will need to read the book carefully, of course. While doing so, ask yourself what the author’s viewpoint and thesis are. Neither may be stated explicitly, although hints are frequently found in the preface or introduction. Often, in the introduction, the author will provide several key points around which his book is centered. In the body of the text, the author will use various kinds of evidence to prove his/her points. As a reviewer, it is your task to decide if the evidence is convincing and whether or not the author supports his/her points adequately.
Perhaps the most challenging part of the review will be in answering the question as to whether the book adds new information to the topic. Often, the author will assert the unique quality of the work and it is your responsibility to determine whether or not such an assertion is warranted.
You will determine how successful the author was in carrying out the purposes of the book. If the book is simply a narrative account of particular actions, you still will need to determine what was the author’s point of view as well as how adequately he/she used the available sources to tell the story. In some books, the author may argue his/her theory about a particular situation. The review will need to evaluate the theory, the types of evidence the author utilizes, and how much the book contributes to greater understanding of the topic.
Start with the following heading (the style utilized by Annals of Wyoming and other journals publishing book reviews in history):
Title. Author. Place of publication: publisher, date of publication. Number of pages. Presence of index, illustrations, maps, etc.
You should start your review with an introduction that lets your readers know what the review will say. Provide a very brief overview of the contents, the purpose, and your general reaction and evaluation of the book. With some books, you may wish to provide information about the context—helping you place the book into the broader scholarship on the topic. You will then summarize the main points of the book, quoting and paraphrasing from the author, if relevant. The main part of your review, however, will be the evaluation of the book. In this section, reviewers discuss:
Your book review will end with a conclusion, tying together issues raised in the review and providing a concise comment on the book.
Generally, the first one-half to two-thirds of the review should summarize the author's thesis/main ideas and at least one-third should be your evaluation of the book.
Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains. By Theodore Binnema. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001). 280 pp.
In this carefully argued and well researched study, historian Theodore Binnema has examined the Northwestern plains cultures at the point of Euroamerican contact and before. He proves that there was far greater complexity than the commonly accepted view that the cultures of various tribes fell victim to European contact in identical ways. The "common and contested ground" refers to the environmental relations among the various groups as well as between the larger tribes and Europeans. Adding the full texture of interactions among native groups along with their relations with the environment explain dynamic native cultures of the pre-contact and contact Northwestern plains.
In order to understand the ethnohistory of the region, Binnema argues, one must examine the relationships not only of large groups to one another, but the interactions of bands and even individuals. Depending on the various subsistence strategies bands developed, culturally similar communities were constantly dividing, merging and even adopting new identities. Existence of abundant buffalo or the presence of guns or horses influenced these decisions.
As technology changed and new innovations were introduced from the outside, the impact was felt differently by various bands. For instance, the "horse and gun revolution" came to the various groups at different times. "Coalitions" were formed among the various bands based on the abundance or scarcity of guns or horses. Direct relationships with Euroamerican traders, who competed among themselves for the available resources, provided an additional point of conflict and accommodation. Changes among native suppliers impacted their interrelationships, causing some to flourish and others to recede.
Disease affected band structures even more completely. This caused many bands to merge and others to withdraw from their traditional places on the plains. As competition between Euroamerican traders increased, so did animosities between native bands. Traders moved further into once Native controlled territories and the bands who had previously traded with other native groups found themselves trading directly with Euroamericans. The balance among the bands changed as a result and the inevitable restructuring of band relationships ensued.
While environmental change influenced interrelationships, as the subtitle indicates, Common and Contested Ground is both a "Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains." Binnema goes beyond the commonly accepted view that cultural contact between Native people and whites impacted both groups uniformly. He points out that the reality was far more complex. One cannot generalize as to Indian-white contact, not even on the basis of a specific tribe to a particular European group. Just as they had been doing prior to white contact, native groups continued to develop subsistence strategies by meeting one another for trade or war. While culturally dissimilar joined together to accomplish these goals, at the same time, culturally similar groups split and even developed new identities. (p. 198).
In this important, imaginative study, Binnema convincingly examines both the cultural and environmental complexities to flesh out a little studied period in the history of the Northwestern plains. He has created a model from which ethnohistories of other regions can be examined and their complexities better understood.
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Custer and His Times: Book Four. Edited by John P. Hart. (LaGrange Park, IL.: Little Big Horn Associates, 2002). xxiii+344 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes. No price listed.
Like many compilations of essays, this fourth volume in the Custer series from Little Big Horn Associates has a few predictable essays parsing their hero’s military maneuvers at various engagements in the West, but it also contains some sparkling new assessments of Custer, his times and his legacy. Taken in its entirety, the book is a nicely balanced readable overview of the many facets of the Custer story.
One particularly intriguing essay is the fascinating reassessment of the relationship between Custer and his wife Libbie. Shirley Leckie concludes that the romance was hardly the “fairly tale love story.” (p. 139). Through examinations of diaries and letters, she concludes that Libbie “was strong enough…to endure her husband’s bouts with adolescent behavior and weather the emotional storms of their relationship….” (p. 160).
The book contains a number of color plates of paintings from the Karl May Museum in Germany. In the essay titled “What is Karl May’s Connection to the Indians?” Hans Grunert describes the central role the Custer myth had in the creation and evolution of the May Museum. It was the “favorite research subject of the founding director…Patty Frank.” (p. 310) Through a popular book and commissioned paintings by several European artists, Frank was able to shape the German view of Custer and the Indians of the American West.
Two of the essays are reminiscences of well-known Western historians. The concluding essay in the book by Robert M. Utley is particularly interesting in that the famed historian describes his “introduction” to the Custer story, his friendship with a Custer descendant, his work at the battlefield and his involvement in the “centennial ceremony” at the battlefield in 1976. The essay poignantly points out how historians (and the history they write) evolve over a lifetime and how contemporary events influence their work. While this process is hardly unique to Western history (or to Utley), he is able to describe his experience dispassionately and through brief well-chosen examples.
Several essays examine little-known figures in Western history or seem to have coincidentally encountered Custer. One fascinating figure accompany the 1874 Custer expedition to the Black Hills. She was “Aunt Sally” Campbell, the African-American woman who was the first “non-Indian American” woman pioneer in the Black Hills.(pp. 110-138). Her story, told by Ramona Rand-Caplan, helps correct the record, but it also points out the many facets of racism in Custer’s times and beyond.
For the Custer buff, the book is essential, but more important, anyone interested in the development of the “myth of the West” will find some gems in this nicely edited compilation.