H-France Review of Books
Important Reviewer Information
I. Thank you for your interest in the H-France Review of Books. Please keep in contact with the Co-editor (book reviews) [Michael J. Carley (mjcarley@uakron.edu)] who commissioned your review or review article. In general, we suggest submitting reviews or review articles within six to eight weeks, subject to other arrangements.
II. Submit the review or review article directly to M. J. Carley, Co-editor (book reviews), for approval and general editing. From there it will be sent to the H-France web page editor and to H-Net Central for archiving on the H-France and H-Net web pages.
III. N. B., Upon receiving your review copy, please send the Co- editor (book reviews) a short e-mail confirmation that you have received the book.
IV. Finally, please read the guidelines below carefully as they contain important procedural, formatting, and copyright information.
The Value of H-France/H-Net Reviews
Reviewing books is one of the most important aspects of the H-France discussion list. We attempt to publish reviews and review articles as expeditiously as possible. At a time when print journals generally take one to two years or more to review new works, H-France may obtain and distribute professional reviews in a matter of months. Moreover, since there are no printing costs associated with reviews over the net, H-France reviews may be longer and more detailed than reviews for most print journals. For important new works and works which may be of interest to scholars in different fields, H-France will from time to time arrange review articles and fora (i.e., simultaneous reviews and discussion by several commentators) on important books.H-France reviews may facilitate dialogue on a new work. Normally, authors do not engage their reviewers in a public forum except during occasional conference sessions. Authors' responses to print reviews have traditionally been considered peevish and are discouraged. On H-France, however, authors are welcome to respond to reviews and to discuss their work.
H-France Guidelines for Reviewers
A. The most effective review will place the book in a broader historical and historiographical context.B. Reviews should include a brief summary of the scope, purpose, and content of the work and its significance in the literature on the subject. Many readers will depend on this summary for substantive information on a topic.
C. Reviews should go beyond description to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the work, paying attention to the use of sources, methodology, organization, and presentation. Evaluation should consider the work's stated purpose.
D. Reviewers should keep in mind that the audience (H-France and H- Review) for which they are writing includes subscribers from many different disciplines. Hence, it is important for reviewers to provide historical or historiographical background when necessary. H-France reviews may have endnotes, which are a good place to refer to related books and articles. Be sure also to give full names and identities of persons cited in the text. If you use abbreviations for political parties, organizations, etc., be certain to identify them in full in your first reference. Moreover, clarity of expression is important: make sure that allusions, images, metaphors, and the like are clear to a broad range of readers. If the author's language is not clear to the reader, it is the author's responsibility to make it clear.
E. Whether the evaluation of a work is favourable or unfavourable, reviewers should express criticism without becoming personal and without overdone polemics. Very often understatement is more effective than the reverse. Reviewers are responsible for presenting a fair-minded assessment of the work and for treating authors as you would wish to be treated as an author. Electronic communication is a hot medium in which intellectual exchange may be lost to verbal conflict. As with all items posted to the H-France list, the Co-editor (book reviews) will be responsible for maintaining a constructive review process and may ask reviewers to reword or rewrite sections of their reviews. The Co-editor (book reviews) has the prerogative to refuse submissions.
F. Format:
1. Reviews may be titled.
2. All reviews must be headed with the full information concerning the book.
3. All reviews should carry reviewer's name, institutional affiliation at the top and bottom of the review. Please put your e-mail address underneath your institutional affiliation at the bottom of the review.
4. Reviews must be in ASCII format, that is, with no accents or italics.
5. Italics should be represented like this: _Title of Book_.
6. The following template may be used for the top of the review:
An Average Canadian Life Jane Doe, My Life and Hard Times: The Early Years. Whitehorse: Yukon University Press, 1995. 2 vols. xvii + 932 pp. Tables, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $49.95 Cdn (cl); $17.95 Cdn (pb). ISBN #.
Review by Sandra Smith, Queen's University, for H-France, date.
At the end of the review; put your name, institution, and e-mail address.
7. H-France is flexible concerning the length of reviews. Length should be determined in consultation with the H- France book review editor, but normally reviewers should keep to 1,500 words. Reviewers are discouraged from abandoning the good writer's self-discipline and concern for conciseness and clarity.
8. All reviews should be single spaced. It is fine to skip an occasional line for the sake of appearance. The text should be 60 to 75 columns wide, and should start at the flush left margin.
9. Page numbers should be supplied for all quoted passages and represented thus: (p. xx).
10. Any standard citation form may be used. Reviewers should use endnotes (if desired), rather than footnotes which do not translate well in e-mail.
11. In English, British, Canadian, or American spellings are accepted. This is the author's prerogative. Reviews may also be submitted in the French language.
12. Reviewers should proofread their text carefully.
14. For short or partial quotations, the comma or period should be outside the ending quotation mark, thus ....", or ....". For longer quotations (i.e., one or more sentences) the comma or period should be inside the ending quotation mark, thus ...," or ...."
15. Finally, if you have any questions about format and length of your text, please contact the Co-editor (book reviews).
G. Author's Responses:
One objective of book reviews on H-France is to facilitate discussion of new works. To this end, H-France will encourage dialogue between authors and their reviewers. Authors may receive copies of reviews and be encouraged to respond. The Co-editor (book reviews) may delay posting of a review to allow authors time to respond.
H. Copyright: All reviews should carry the following H-Net copyright statement at the bottom of the review after the reviewer's name and so on:
Copyright 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the H-France list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu.
Reviews are considered a work made-for-hire and, as such, all copyright rights to the review shall be owned by and be in the name of H-Net. H-Net in turn grants all review authors the right to reprint their reviews in any format that they choose, without the payment of royalties, subject to giving proper credit to the original publication on H-Net. H-Net permits all of its reviews to be copied for non-profit educational use provided proper credit is given to the review author and H-Net. H-Net reviewers should not agree to write a separate review of the same work for a print journal.
I. Any conflicts arising out of the review process will be adjudicated by the H-France editorial board.
J. Editing reviews and authors' responses:
1. H-France list editors' primary responsibility is to maintain the intellectual integrity of their lists and the propriety of debate.
2. The Co-editor (book reviews) may edit with a light or heavy hand, but all changes must be accepted by reviewers.
3. The Co-editor (book reviews) reserves the right not to post reviews and responses.
K. WWW: All H-France solicited reviews are archived and available on the WWW (http://h-net.msu.edu/~France).
Michael J. Carley
Book Review Editor, H-France
mjcarley@uakron.edu
tel. 330-972-6896
FAX 330-972-5132
Maintained by Janice Archer: janice@spacey.com and Zoe Schneider: schneidz@gusun.georgetown.edu
