Electromagnetic

To my surprise and disappointment, I find most academic book reviews seem to showcase the reviewer’s skill at jockeying for position in a field of scholarship rather than sustained and careful critical analysis of the book under review. Worse, and not infrequently, reviewers seem to have not completely read the book but to have proceeded writing the review anyway with no other discernible motive except to be contentious. Even more disgraceful are those reviews that fail to treat the book’s ideas and arguments but settle for attacks on ideas not necessarily even directly discussed in the book being reviewed that some scholars associate with the work of the author.