I would add that there is only very rarely real scholarly substance to reviews. There used to be, but that's over. This need not be the case. A good editor can help make prose work for a wide readership.
Smart stuff, cuz. I think the preferences of individual editors matter greatly at the BR as they do at other papers and magazines. A now retired editor there probably got all my books assigned to reviewers. If he hadn't liked my work, who knows if they would have been covered?
I realize this is a stretch, but I’d love to hear you on the larger issue of the insiderism of the profession.
Just the various many ways in which for those lucky enough to be at elite institutions all kinds of scarce benefits come one’s way: fellowships prizes election to elite societies, and in affect everyone else in the profession is very much on the outside looking in.
And it’s difficult from the very beginning because every aspiring young person who is passionate about a field knows that this artificial selection begins at the tender age of eighteen with where one goes to college. One is then told at twenty
-two, that one should choose a university and a department for grad school rather than opting for an outstanding scholar in a less elite university or department and so on and so on.
It’s enough to make us wonder whether or not there’s anything remotely approaching a meritocracy in terms of rewarding the best, the brightest, the most productive, the most important.
I would add that there is only very rarely real scholarly substance to reviews. There used to be, but that's over. This need not be the case. A good editor can help make prose work for a wide readership.
Another great commentary
Smart stuff, cuz. I think the preferences of individual editors matter greatly at the BR as they do at other papers and magazines. A now retired editor there probably got all my books assigned to reviewers. If he hadn't liked my work, who knows if they would have been covered?
on *very* rare occasions the NYTBR does manage to publish sharpy negative reviews. This brilliant review, from a decade ago, came to my attention recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html. (not on a history book, but worth reading!)
David
Continue with the muckraking please.
I realize this is a stretch, but I’d love to hear you on the larger issue of the insiderism of the profession.
Just the various many ways in which for those lucky enough to be at elite institutions all kinds of scarce benefits come one’s way: fellowships prizes election to elite societies, and in affect everyone else in the profession is very much on the outside looking in.
And it’s difficult from the very beginning because every aspiring young person who is passionate about a field knows that this artificial selection begins at the tender age of eighteen with where one goes to college. One is then told at twenty
-two, that one should choose a university and a department for grad school rather than opting for an outstanding scholar in a less elite university or department and so on and so on.
It’s enough to make us wonder whether or not there’s anything remotely approaching a meritocracy in terms of rewarding the best, the brightest, the most productive, the most important.