Back in May I posted a short video of my Civil War library and related studies. You can see that I am slowly running out of space and, as a result, I have drastically cut back on the purchasing of new titles. Most of what comes my way, however, are complimentary copies from publishers and authors who hope to have their books reviewed on this site. I am going to update the list of books received every few weeks.
William Blair and Karen F. Younger, eds., Lincoln’s Proclamation: Emancipation Reconsidered (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us From Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Judith Giesberg, Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Homefront (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
Jeffrey W. McClurken, Take Care of the Living: Reconstructing Confederate Veteran Families in Virginia, (University of Virginia Press, 2009).
Scott L. Mingus, The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 (Louisiana State University Press, 2009).
Barton A. Myers, Executing Daniel Bright: Race, Loyalty, and Guerilla Violence in A Coastal Carolina Community, 1861-1865 (Louisiana University Press, 2009). Note: This book has already won the 2009 Jules and Frances Landry Award.
Scott,
Congratulations on your new book. Even with all of their recent financial problems, LSU is a dynamite press. In the interest of full disclosure, however, your book was complimentary. Hey, academic presses are pretty expensive these days.
Hello Kevin! Thanks for purchasing my new book! I sincerely appreciate it! Enjoy!
Scott,
Congratulations on your new book. Even with all of their recent financial problems, LSU is a dynamite press. In the interest of full disclosure, however, your book was complimentary. Hey, academic presses are pretty expensive these days.
Kevin,
Understand where you're coming from re buying books. I presented a paper at the Conference on Illinois History yesterday in Springfield and didn't get to stop by Prairie Archives to browse their shelves. Not sure where I would have put anything anyway.
Just a quick question. What is the ratio of books you receive to what you actually review?
Best
Rob
Hi Rob,
That's a good question, but a difficult one to answer. Most of what I write as a formal review is commissioned by journals and magazines. I don't usually write formal reviews for the blog. I make it a point to tell publishers that I make no promises that their book will be read or that it will be mentioned in any way on my blog. More often than not, however, I end up singling the book out in a post or series of posts. From the perspective I don't think it really ought to matter whether the book is formally reviewed here. What does matter is that the book receives some amount of exposure. The blog theme that I am using has the most efficient code for effective SEO, which basically means that it appears frequently close to the top of search engine search lists. Hope that helps and sorry for the long-winded response.
Kevin,
No apologies necessary. I asked that because I thought you rarely did a formalized review here, and it seems the books you do mention are books that you probably would have mentioned regardless of whether you got the copy from the publisher or bought it retail. I guess I've always wondered how efficient a post on a blog would be for publishers selling a book. Of course, any publicity helps, even if it only sells a handful of copies, but I can't help but think publishers aren't using the web as effectively as they could. When I was running my blog I wrote a post on five books everyone interested in the Lincoln assassination should own and I've always wondered if it helped sell many books or not. Of course, your blog reaches far more people than I did, so your numbers are likely something a publisher would find of interest.
Best
Rob