the global urban experience
Book Review Instructions
A critical book review is a thoughtful discussion of a text’s contents, strengths, and limitations. A book review should reflect your capacity to read critically and to evaluate an author’s arguments and evidence. Compose your review as you would any essay, with an argument supported by evidence, and a clear, logical structure. Your task is to write a review on Stiglitz’s Making Globalization Work that clearly marries the concepts and challenges discussed in his text with some of the class discussions and lectures we have had. While the class lectures have not been plentiful, there have been subject highlights and examples relatable to the central theme of his book.
There is no particular format to the book review rather the following questions are expected to be addressed in your review of the text
1. What is the central question or issue that the book is addressing?
2. What is the book’s argument or thesis?
3. How is the book organized to support this thesis? How are the chapters ordered? Chronologically? Thematically?
You as the reader have discretion in writing the review of the book. Remember this is not a summary of the book rather an evaluation of the book based on class discussions and your individual feelings and supported research. The following is a possible outline for your review
Structure of a Book Review
I. Introduction
An introduction to a book review is generally short and direct. However, it must provide two key elements: background and thesis.
Background: First, your introduction should identify the book and author under review along with any essential historical or historiographical background: What time period and region are discussed? What is the historical question or topic that the book addresses?
Thesis: Somewhere in your introduction (generally toward the end) you must provide a succinct, clear evaluation of the book. This evaluation is the thesis for your book review. Your thesis should encompass three main components:
1. What the main argument of the book is.
2. Your evaluation of the book such as its strengths and contributions or weaknesses and shortcomings.
3. Why and/or in what ways you think the work demonstrates these strengths and weaknesses.
II. Summary of Key Arguments
After your introduction, you should generally provide a brief summary or overview of the book. Take great care not to simply repeat or mirror everything in the book. Step back and identify what its essential arguments are and briefly summarize them.
You may want to comment on:
• What is the book’s thesis?
• How is it organized?
• What are the major arguments?
• What types of evidence are presented?
III. Evaluation/Analysis
This section should constitute the bulk of your review. In it, you need to explain and develop the evaluation made in your thesis. Make sure to use examples and quotations from the book to illustrate and prove your assessment of the work. For example, if your thesis argues that the work provides a careful and detailed examination of a topic, you should point toward places in the book where it does so. Similarly, if you argue that the work fails to recognize a particular perspective, give examples of places in the text that you think would have benefited from attention to that perspective.
IV. Conclusion
Your conclusion should provide a succinct summation of your review. Overall, what does this work contribute to its field? What limitations does it possess? Does it suggest interesting avenues for future research? How does your analysis of the book help readers to understand the time period being studied or how historians have understood that period?
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