Some book review sources are not appropriate for scholarly work. Avoid reviews in popular magazines such as Choice, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, etc. Reviews in these kinds of publications are not scholarly reviews.
Aim to collect book reviews from scholarly journals.
In addition, book reviews in publications like The Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books may be acceptable as they are often written by scholars.
Look for these elements in a book review:
Source: Where was the review published? Is it a reputable scholarly journal in the field of history (or adjacent)?
Reviewer: Is the author of the review a scholar in the same field?
Writing quality: Is it accessible? Readable? Well written?
Purpose: What is the book about? What is the thesis or argument? Is there a good summary?
Evidence: What is the evidence presented and how does the evidence presented support the thesis/argument?
Relationships: Where does the book fit in relation to other theories/narratives/books on the same topic?
Criticisms: What is left out? How is the argument incomplete or lacking?
View this video to learn how to find book reviews on JSTOR.
Search the history databases and Book Review Digest simultaneously to find book reviews:
Historical Abstracts covers reviews in history journals for non-North American history. America: History & Life is the best source for scholarly book reviews for topics in North American history. Add Academic Search Complete, which is a good general database covering scholarly journals in many different disciplines, and the book review database Book Review Digest, to get the best search possible. You could also consider adding other subject databases if appropriate, for example the Political Science Complete database.
1. After clicking on a link to get to an EBSCO database, click on the link to the database that appears at the top:
2. Select all the relevant database from the list.
3. type in the title of the book in the search box. Then, scroll down to "Publication Type" and select "Review" from the list. Note: you can also filter by publication type after getting a results list by clicking on the All filters button:
Click on the link to the full text if available. Otherwise, click on Access Options, then click on the Find It link. This will open your citation in a Knox Primo window. Login to Knox Primo to see options for getting the full text or requesting the article via interlibrary loan.