On the pleasures and pitfalls of being reviewed | thearticle

Book reviewing has attracted some interesting reflections from reviewers, but somewhat fewer from reviewees. Having written rather a lot of books, I feel I have something to offer from the

latter perspective, and hope that is illuminated by also having written very many reviews. In the academic world, the key reviews are those that determine, or rather should determine,

whether books are published. They are commissioned (and paid for) by the publisher and are sent to the author as anonymous enclosures. A sensible author, however, will already have prepared

by organising candid reviews by friends, colleagues and others, these intended to point out flaws, lacunae and poor writing. I generally seek about eight such which help prepare for the

process of publisher-commissioned reviews. The latter can be very helpful, especially if long, detailed, and focused on how best to improve a text. There are of course the funny ones that

essentially point out that you have not devoted sufficient attention to the views of X– almost certainly the reviewer – and also those who tell you what they would have said, which invites

the question why they have not done so hitherto. A humorous account is offered by ‘Peer Review and Changing a Lightbulb; a Historians’ View‘. Often these reviews are written in the happy

assurance that there is only one possible response to the piece, which is that of the reviewer. In practice, there can be differences in assessment. I published an article on foreign policy

in the 1740s for which a certain journal had commissioned three reviews. The editor wrote to me in some confusion as one of the reviews was strongly negative, one firmly pro, and one pretty

pro. I was asked to comment on this contrast. Such subjectivity is indeed more common than many historians will allow for with their claims to definitive status. I was once approached by

Cambridge University with what they told me was a strange request. A viva for a PhD had been held. One of the examiners was strongly pro the candidate (who now holds a post in Oxford), and

one strongly against. Both were very distinguished and each had complained about the other. I was sent the thesis, asked to report on whether I thought it merited a PhD (I did), and asked to

explain in writing why these two distinguished figures (both now dead) had come to such different answers. Historiography in the raw. More generally, historiographical trench lines can play

a key role in reviews, as opposed to objective efforts to review a work on its own merits and demerits. So we are all reviewed in the profession. It is best to treat it in a relaxed fashion

and, indeed, to have some fun. In 2004, I published _Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century_, a book that is somewhat relevant at present. There were two reviewers for the

publisher; one very pro and one very anti. The publisher was Cambridge University Press. My editor, William Davies (for publishers should not be treated as abstractions), sent me both and

asked for my comments. I rejigged my introduction to note the anti-arguments in the form of ‘It can be argued’ and then to explain why I thought them wrong, somewhat to the irritation of the

reviewer. The review process can of course allow for character assassination, and I have had that, too, thrown at me. To give a flavour, my discussion of British conduct at Amritsar in

1919, taking account of the security situation of the time and the related complexities of counter-insurgency, may strike you as reasonable or unreasonable, complicit or extenuating. But an

anonymous report for Oxford University Press (New York) in 2014 described it as akin to justification of “the Nazi regime”. The academic in question clearly treated issues of intentionality,

scale, and persistence as naught, but also reflected a total lack of judgment in tone as well as content. The more common comparison, also totally inappropriate, but reflecting the

perversity of anti-Semitism, is of modern Israel and Nazi Germany. Both comparisons minimise the seriousness of the Holocaust, which may indeed be the intention. If you are used to such

reviews, you are prepared for anything that can appear among the public reviews, those commissioned by the media in all its forms. On the whole, these are the least helpful category of

review, as they generally come too late to improve the book, and, by the time of their appearance, the author is generally researching something else. For that reason, I do not read reviews

once a book has been published, unless my attention has been directed to it. This was so with a review by Kim Wagner of my _Imperial Legacies _published in the _Guardian_. I am ashamed to

admit having published a study of the history of the English press lately, that, although I would like to take the _Guardian _seriously, I find its repetitive character predictable and

therefore dreary. Moreover, the previous piece in the newspaper that had been drawn to my attention, an unbalanced obituary of Norman Stone, had been so flawed that I was not encouraged to

look again. On 16 August, my friend Charles Pender drew my attention to a “slashingly negative review” that appeared to be “politically determined”, adding that if I valued my “equanimity”

it would be better not to read it. Actually, as he had identified the author as Kim Wagner I was not at all bothered. I had listed his Amritsar book in a recent piece for _Standpoint _on

overrated history books. Hitting back in these circumstances can be all too common, as correspondents in the _London Review of Books _on 2 December 2010 pointed out when considering Richard

Evans’s hostile review of Timothy Snyder’s _Bloodlands_. Unsurprisingly, I decided neither to read the review nor to consider a letter to the _Guardian _— which indeed has a track record on

the Empire. In the issue of 13 February 2014, the paper linked the Empire to a bellicosity that was allegedly bad for British society. However, it was this bellicosity, as well as the

Empire, that enabled Britain to fight on in 1940-1. I have already pointed out in a piece in TheArticle that Daniel Dorling, an Oxford Professor praised in the _Guardian_, expressed the wish

that Britain had been conquered in 1940 so as to improve its understanding of Empire. I am an eighteenth-centurist by background, so candour is of my nature. The bowels, Sir, the bowels,

their exigencies forced me to cure the tedium of some minutes. I broke my resolve, read the review, and laughed out loud. Amid the froth of Wagner’s spleen, he tried one substantive hit:

that I was wrong to consider Amritsar 1919 and 1984 together. As to this, I pointed out the contrast, but also the large number of Sikhs slaughtered in 1984. I was not trying to excuse

General Dyer, but simply to point out the need to contextualise imperial actions in a comparative setting. More to the point, readers are urged to read the review, to read the book, and to

assess their respective merits. Of course, to diminish an author, you could try ignoring them, or, at least, get the criticism right. My main failing is that I am not good at conceptualising

change. No reviewer that I can recall has ever pointed that out. One, P.D.G. Thomas, did note the other fault, that I could be overly prone to see both sides of a case and therefore be

indecisive in my analysis. Most reviewers who wish to be critical simply say I do too much, which, of course, is something they should address to the peer-review process. For all authors,

each book should be judged on its merits. Is there a wider pattern? What lies beneath is always an instructive exercise. Against a background of Twitter bile, recent weeks have brought Evans

on Stone, Drayton on Biggar, and Wagner on Black.(He also attacked Nigel Biggar, Michael Gove, and Andrew Roberts in this review.). Two of these appeared in the _Guardian _which suggests at

least some link. No fewer than two friends told me prior to my last piece in TheArticle that I was being “very brave” to put my “head above the parapet”, and another has made the same point

about a draft of this article. There is, indeed, a trend of character assassination and book/reputation trashing. Presumably this is designed to close down opportunities for other opinions.

That can involve a pattern of misrepresentation, but the tendency simply to deny the validity of other views is what is most apparent. This can be linked to the current hyperbolic use of

language in political and public discourse. I have already pointed out in _The__Article_, first that it is unlikely that these academics would grant a similar leeway to students who came to

opposite conclusions, and, secondly, that studies of the British Empire seem particularly to bring out their bile. There are also pervasive tropes such as Western malevolence, non-Westerners

having no agency, and an alleged malign role for markets. I regard the conduct of these academics as unprofessional, unscholarly, and crass. Given the pomposity and self-righteousness that

characterises them, it is also very funny. A contemporary Alexander Pope in a modern Dunciad would find much cause for satire with these individuals.