One outcome of this change has been the destruction of the critical environment for books. “There just aren’t as many reviews, and the reviews are generally not as thoughtful or comprehensive as they used to be, because everyone is rushed,” says Sarah. “Criticism as a force is diminished and that has changed the nature of editorial decisions about books."
I used to do a lot of "reactive" book noting at this blog -- the book promotion industry brought enough material to my attention that I always had some new book to mention. These days, it's hard work trying to find what gets published about Canadian history. There is a lot; it's just become invisible.
Canada's History remains a notable holdout. Reading the substantial review section in this month's issue, I find fourteen reviews and notes on recent Canadian history titles, filling eight pages and ranging from the life of Wa'xaid (Cecil Paul) to Montreal's role in building the atomic bomb to Nova Scotian crime stories to the rise and fall of a Vancouver butcher shop to a Prince Albert memoir to the streetcars of St John's to The Toronto Book of Love. It is simultaneously a lot and not hardly enough.
What's needed is an online CanHist book review site. Call it a blog, a website, a magazine, I don't care, but someone needs to create and curate a site for briefly noting, reviewing and promoting what's being published into silence from Canadian historians.
There are models. The British Columbia Review (devoted to anything published in or about that province) is one. Active History (daily commentary by historians on whatever moves them) is another, slightly more distant, model. Like them, a Canadian history-reviewing web platform would need a university home, I think, since universities are awash in money (relative to everyone else) and have the infrastructure readily at hand. But academic reviewing in academic journals is not in trouble and not the problem. The kind of site that Canadian history urgently needs would need to follow (and take advice from, probably) the BCR in aiming entirely at a general rather than academic readership.
Update, same day: Patrick Lacroix responds
I'm reaching out to share a few thoughts regarding book reviews. To preface this, I agree entirely with the need for a widely accessible platform offering reviews that are timely but not rushed.
Part of the issue, as I see it, is that social media has provided readers' unprecedented access to authors and vice versa. Personal followings have formed online and readers have trucked thoughtful analysis by a third party for this type of access and immediacy. Authors (and their networks and rivalries) are themselves molding the public conversation. In my experience, publishers have turned away from the prospect of glowing reviews in the national media and relied more and more on authors themselves to drive book sales.
That being said, reviews have not disappeared entirely but, as you're hinting at, the market is fragmented. I've reviewed books on my blog - but it's a fairly narrow audience that, for the most part, has a built-in interest in the topic. I'd say that's true of many blogs, podcasts, etc. We've settled into little niches and we're missing a common ground of discussion appealing to a wider public.
I hasten to add that these blogs are usually oriented towards academic publishing - and fair enough. As you've pointed out before, the landscape of general-readership history publishing is not what it used to be. Maybe (even setting aside the role of social media) it's a natural corollary that book reviews would go the same way.
In any event, I hope some enterprising organization or individuals will help set in motion precisely what you describe.
Update, March 22. And just to prove historical book notices are not entirely dead, Active History publishes a review by Robin Benger of James Cullingham, Two Dead White Men, a intriguing-sounding comparative study of Duncan Campbell Scott and Jacques Soustelle, respectively a Canadian and a French agent of assimilation. It's published by Seneca (College) Press, with an introduction by Drew Hayden Taylor and an afterword by John Milloy.
Update, March 23: Claire Campbell weighs in:
Admittedly, our focus is environmental history (Canadian, continental, and beyond), but we try to cover at least one corner of the map as NiCHE (the Network in Canadian History & Environment). We publish book reviews online, as well as a monthly column highlighting new work, and posts featuring new work and author interviews. (If you're interested in reviewing for us, do let us know!)
It's worth noting that Andrea Eidinger (who now works for LAC) used to do the kind of survey you would like - but as volunteer labour. It would be lovely to have a whole cohort of historians employed full-time in writing reviews and curating book news ...
Thanks, Claire Campbell. You are quite right about NiCHE 's coverage of environmental history-- see the link to it at right for evidence. And Andrea Eidinger's blog did do noble work, but a regularly appearing and comprehensive compilation of notices and/or reviews of new work in Canadian history is far beyond ability of any individual volunteer.
