Why read book reviews?
For a few reasons:
- Academic book reviews usually offer both a short summary and a critical analysis of the book.
- Reviews often situate the book within the context of what other scholars have written on the topic.
- By searching for book reviews on a topic, you may discover relevant books you hadn't heard about before.
Search Tips: Book Reviews
If you're looking for reviews of a specific book, try putting the book title in double quotes "like this" to search only for that exact phrase.
If you can't find reviews of the book you're interested in, try searching for only part of the title.
Anthropology Book Reviews
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AnthroSourceYou can find book reviews in Anthrosource, as well as other articles from Anthropology journals.
Book reviews are usually 1-2 pages in length, so keep an eye out for short articles in the search results. Book reviews are sometimes indicated by including the book author's name in the search results, e.g. Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self by Elly Teman.
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ARD: the Anthropology Review DatabaseContains approximately 2600 full-text reviews of books in anthropology.
Sociology Book Reviews
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Sociological AbstractsSociological Abstracts is a great resource for book reviews.
To limit your search to just book reviews, scroll down a bit and find the "Document Type" box. Check the box for "Book Reviews" and then search for your topic.
For example, a general search for "incarceration" returns over 2000 articles. Limiting the search to book reviews gives you 48 reviews of sociological books related to this topic.
More resources for book reviews
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Full list of book review sourcesThis longer list might be helpful for finding book reviews, especially if you're looking for reviews of books outside of anthropology or sociology.