Historical Book Review

1. Historical Book Review DE US History 

2. Components  • A CONCISE critique that shares information about an historical topic • title • citation • introduction • body • conclusion

3. Title & Citation  • Typically the title will include the title of the book you are critiquing.  • The citation must be complete in either APA or Turabian, depending on your teacher's preference. 

4. Introduction • Introduce the author, the historical period and topic of the book. Relate the area of expertise of the author to determine the credibility of the work. Tell the reader what genre of history this work belongs to or what approach the author has used, if the work is fiction. Set out the main argument or plot. 

5. Body: summarize organization • Summarize the book’s organization and give a little more detail about the author’s sub-arguments or sub-plots. Here you would also work in your assessment of the credibility of evidence and sources used. 

6. Body: critique historical argument  • Critique the historical argument by discussing strengths, weaknesses, bias, or flaws in the book. If it is a work of fiction, also discuss how it aligns with historical fact.  It is up to you to decide in what order these should come, but if you assess the book positively overall, do not spend inordinate space on the book’s faults and vice versa.  

7. Conclusion • State your recommendations for readership in the conclusion unless that has been covered in your discussion of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. You might review how convincing the argument was, describe how it piqued your interest or extended your knowledge of the topic, say something about the importance or uniqueness of the argument and topic, or describe how the author adds to our understanding of a particular historical question.