AM420 Space, Place and Movement
Book Review Guidelines
Why write a book review?
This exercise is designed to help you familiarise yourself with a particular topic within the second half of the course - just as you would when writing an essay. However, it encourages you to go about it a bit differently. It is designed to get you thinking about the book in the way that a professional historian would: how does it contribute to its field of research? How did the author go about researching and writing the book? What sources did he or she use?
How effective is the book? How well-written is it – is it enjoyable and accessible to read?
How does what she or he produced differ from, and contribute to, a field of historical knowledge? Which are the most effective chapters, and which are weaker? Why? What could the person have done better/ differently?
The review should take you about the same amount of time and work as a regular short essay, but it involves a slightly different approach. Most students find it a refreshing change from essay-writing, and an interesting and helpful exercise.
Can I use this exercise for other pieces of writing on the course?
Yes. You can build from your book review to write a long essay on a similar topic if you want. You can also incorporate it into your class presentation if you’re still due to do one.
The research you do for it may also help you in the exam, and it is fine to incorporate it if an appropriate question comes up. You can also incorporate it into your dissertation if you’re doing one for this course.
The exercise:
Please prepare a book review of about 1,500 words (there is no 10% rule!) The review does not need to be written like an essay, although some of the same techniques apply. You won’t need such a formal introduction and conclusion, for example - although you will need to find a way to introduce the book briefly and make some concluding remarks at the end. Do stick to the normal conventions of academic writing – the usual references, footnotes, and a bibliography at the end.
Imagine that you are writing for an audience that includes historians and educated general readers. These people are broadly familiar with the history of Atlantic slavery, but they don’t necessarily know much about the topic or period that the book addresses, so you will need to give a brief overview of this. They are wondering whether to buy the book, what its main contributions are, and how it is being received by an academic community. Maybe they are wondering whether it would be a good book to put on their course outlines for their students to read. Your review is a quick way for them to get a sense of this. Hence, it should:
Summarise the book’s overall argument, and provide a brief sense of how it develops in the different chapters

Discuss what sources (especially primary sources) the book is based on, and how these have shaped the historian’s viewpoint
Assess critically its contribution to its field: how does the book add to, alter or reshape historical thinking on the topic? What does it tell us that is new (if anything)?
How effective is it? How well-written? How useful?
Tips for researching and preparing the review
Reading the book:
Read the whole book once through; take brief notes to help you later
Pay particular attention to the introduction, where the author will set out a lot of what you need to know: the book’s intended contribution to a field; how it departs from other literature on the topic; the sources used; the approach taken. Many books offer helpful chapter summaries at the start.
Pay particular attention to the list of primary sources and bibliography at the end: where/how did the author do their research? Did they use “conventional” historical sources or perhaps make use of “non-conventional” ones – interviews, oral history, musical recordings? What secondary sources have they drawn on and dialogued with throughout the book? Is the author primarily a historian, or are they also influenced by anthropology, literary/ cultural approaches, sociology?
Use the index to locate key terms within the book that you may be interested in researching further
Reading beyond the book:
Use the course bibliography and/ or notes from classes/ lectures to get a sense of the overall topic which is the book’s context
Check the works of the main authors the book dialogues with (use the introduction of the book to be reviewed). How does the work depart from or debate with these?
Check what others have said about the book. Most good books in this area get reviewed in journals like Slavery and Abolition; Hispanic American Historical Review;
American Historical Review; William & Mary Quarterly; Hispanic American Historical Review;
Luso-Brazilian Review; The Americas; Journal of Latin American Studies; Latin American
Research Review; etc. Use JSTOR, Project Muse and similar databases. Cite these reviews if you want, just as you would any other reference. Who are the people who are reviewing the book? Do you agree with them?
Books for Review
The following books have been selected because they are substantive, fairly recent, interesting and readable, and pertain directly to topics covered on the course. They are mostly available at the library, but there are only a couple of copies of most of them. Some are available as e-books.

You may wish to buy a copy of “your” book. Many are available very cheaply second-hand, on Amazon or Abe Books.
If you find a book that you would prefer to review instead, this may well be possible but
please consult me by email first; some books are more suitable for this exercise than others.
Adderley, Roseanne Marion. New Negroes from Africa: Slave Trade Abolition and Free African
Settlement in the Nineteenth-Century Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Dorsey, Joseph C. Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition: Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-
Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Rediker, Marcus, The Slave Ship: A Human History. London: John Murray, 2007.
Bilby, Kenneth M. True-Born Maroons. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2008.
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800. CUP, 1998
(2 nd ed.)
Soares, Mariza. People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro.
Duke University Press, 2011.
Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Harvard
University Press, 2005.
Beckles, Hilary. Centering Woman: Gender Relations in Caribbean Slave Society. Kingston: Ian
Randle Publishers, 1999.
Morgan, Jennifer L. Labouring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher. Empire and Antislavery: Spain, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, 1833-1874.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999.
Wood, Marcus. The Horrible Gift of Freedom: Atlantic Slavery and the Representation of Emancipation.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
Camp, Stephanie. Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation
South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Diouf, Sylviane A. Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last
Africans Brought to America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Gomez, Michael A. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 131.
Horne, Gerald. The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade (New
York: NYU Press, 2007).

Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders and Slaves in the Old South. University of
Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Ferreira, Roquinaldo. Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the
Era of the Slave Trade. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Barcia Paz, Manuel. Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations,
1808-1848. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
Childs, Matt D. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Reid-Vázquez, Michele. The Year of the Lash: Free People of Colour in Cuba and the Nineteenth-
Century Atlantic World. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
Scott, Rebecca. Degrees of Freedom: Cuba and Louisiana after Slavery. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 2005.
Kristin Mann, Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760–1900 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2007).
Zephyr Frank, Dutra’s World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004
Lauderdale Graham, Sandra. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society.
Cambridge University Press, 2002.