Book Reviews

The National Coalition of Independent Scholars reviews:

Books authored by NCIS Members
Books written by members of NCIS Partner Groups
Books of particular interest to independent scholars

NCIS Members should ask the Book Review Editor about books they would like to review, or if they think a review by another qualified NCIS Member would be of critical interest to NCIS Members. The Review Editor will then try to obtain a review copy from the publisher. Even though we try to focus on independent scholarship, an NCIS Member may ask the Review Editor for review on any book in any discipline with any focus. 

Suggestions for book reviews, or information about a book you would like to have reviewed, should be submitted to the Book Review Editor at reviews@ncis.org.

Book reviews are published on line once they receive editorial approval, and are subsequently published in the next issue of our open access peer-reviewed journal The Independent Scholar (TIS) when they receive their final page numbering etc. Reviews are listed below under the volume in which they appear.

Submitting a Book Review

Completed reviews must be submitted via our Open Access Journal Submission (OJS) portal. Reviews must include the following information: title, author, publication details, ISBN, prices, number of pages, and an image of the book cover (before text) and a brief biographical note about the reviewer (after text).  Examples of past reviews can be found at www.ncis.org/book-reviewsthe-independent-scholar-tis. 

The Independent Scholar Volume 11 (Forthcoming, 2024)

Pre-prints of book reviews:

Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox

(Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2021)

Teaching Refugees and Displaced Students: What Every Educator Should Know. Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Ibrahim Kartouki (eds.)

(Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023)

Music and Identity in Twenty-First-Century Monasticism. Amanda J. Haste

(London & New York: Routledge, 2023)

The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information. Craig Robertson

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021)

Defining the Age: Daniel Bell, His Time and Ours, Paul Starr and Julian E. Zelizer (eds.)

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2022)

 Nakam: The Holocaust Survivors Who Sought Full-Scale Revenge. Dina Porat

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 10 (December 2023)

Pre-prints of book reviews:

American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial  Light 1750-1865.  Jeremy Zallen

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019)

With Freedom in Our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism. Anna Elena Torres & Kenyon Zimmer (eds.)

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2023)

Free Will and Human Life. Alan E. Johnson

(Philosophia Publications, 2021)

Independent Scholars Meet the World. Christine Caccipuoti & Elizabeth Keohane-Burbridge (eds.)

(Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2020)

Avian Illustrations: A Cultural History of Birds. Boria Sax

(London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2021)

A Boston Schooner in the Royal Navy, 1768-1722: Commerce and Conflict in Maritime British America. Phillip Reid

(Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2023)

Madness and genetic determinism: Is mental illness in our genes?  Patrick D. Hahn

(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
 

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 9 (December 2022)

Pre-prints of book reviews:

DOUBLE REVIEW: The Textual Effects of David Walker’s Appeal: Print-Based Activism against Slavery, Racism, and Discrimination, 1829-1851, Marcy J. Dinius (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022) AND The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century, P. Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey and Sarah Lynn Patterson, eds. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

The Duke’s Trees: Leonardo’s Unfinished Masterpiece in the Sala delle Asse. Patrizia Costa

(Pittsburgh, PA.: PC Press, 2021)

Memorializing the Middle Classes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe Anne C. Leader, ed.

(Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2018). Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020.

Beyond Truman: Robert H. Ferrell and Crafting the Past. Douglas A. Dixon

(London: Lexington Books, 2020)

A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order Judith Flanders

(New York: Basic Books, 2020)

Everything Worthy of Observation: The 1826 New York State Travel Journal of Alexander Stewart Scott Paul G. Schneider Jr., ed.

(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 8 (December 2021)

Pre-prints of book reviews:

Contagionism Catches On: Medical Ideology in Britain, 1730-1800 Margaret DeLacy

(London &New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

Disinformation in Mass Media: Gluck, Piccinni and the Journal de Paris Beverly Jerold

(London & New York: Routledge, 2021)

Women and Men in the Qur'an. Asma Lamrabet (translated by Muneera Salem-Murdock).

(Washington, DC, USA: Palgrave, 2018)

Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. Wendy Laura Belcher.

(Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing and Publishing, 2019)

A Vote of One’s Own: “Madame Momentum” and the Women’s Network of 1868. Elizabeth Coons

(Bloomington: iUniverse, 2019)

Managing Your Professional Identity Online: A Guide for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators. Kathryn E. Linder 

(Stylus Publishing, eBooks.com, 2018)

Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Sound: Screaming the Abyss. Jasmine Hazel Shadrack 

(UK, N. America, Asia: Emerald Publishing, 2020)

The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600-1800. Phillip Reid

(Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020)

How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up.  Emily Wapnick

(HarperCollins : HarperOne, 2017)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 7 'Connections and Challenges' (August 2020)

Pre-prints of book reviews:

Guns, Grit, and Glory: How the US and Mexico Came Together to Defeat the Last Empire in the Americas. Michael Hogan

(Amissville, VA: Henselstone Verlag, 2019)

Music and Death: Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives. Ed. Marie Josephine Bennett and David Gracon

(UK, N. America, Asia: Emerald Publishing, 2019)

Publishing From Your Doctoral Research: Create and Use a Publication Strategy. Janet Salmons and Helen Kara

(Oxford & New York: Routledge, 2019)

Music for Women (Survivors of Violence): A Feminist Music Therapy Interactive eBook. Ed. Sandra L. Curtis

(Dallas, TX: Barcelona Publishers, 2019)

Lizard & Dinomania. Boria Sax

(London: Reaktion Books, 2017 & 2018)

Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote. Ellen Carol DuBois

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020) 

Sunbelt Diaspora: Race, Class and Latino Politics in Puerto Rican Orlando. Patricia Silver

(Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2020)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 6 'Meeting Challenges' (February 2020)

Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History. Ed. Susan De-Gaia.

(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, E-book 2018; Hardcover 2019) 2 vols.

Little Quick Fix Series: Write a Questionnaire & Do Your Interviews. Helen Kara

(London: Sage, 2019)

Little Quick Fix Series: Use Your Interview Data. Helen Kara

(London: Sage, 2019)

Women and the Society of Biblical Literature. Ed. Nicole L. Tilford

(Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2019)

Interpreters vs Machines: Can Interpreters Survive in an AI-Dominated World? Jonathan Downie

(Oxford; New York: Routledge, 2019).

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 5 (August 2019)

Research Ethics in the Real World: Euro-Western and Indigenous Perspectives. Helen Kara

(Bristol: Policy Press/ University of Bristol, 2018)

Untangling a Red, White, and Black Heritage: A Personal History of the Allotment Era. Darnella Davis

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018)

Twenty Years with the Jewish Labor Bund: A Memoir of Interwar Poland, Bernard Goldstein

(West Lafayette, IND: Purdue University Press, 2016)

Power Under Her Foot: Women Enthusiasts of American Muscle Cars. Chris Lezotte

(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018)

Contemplative Wicca: Reflections on Contemplative Practice for Pagans. Teresa Chupp

(Aeon Books, 2018)

The Electoral College: Failures of Original Intent and a Proposed Constitutional Amendment for Direct Popular Vote. Alan E. Johnson

(Philosophia Publications, 2018)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 4 'Gender & Society'  (December 2018)

The Long Shadow of the Past: Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film and Culture, Katya Krylova
(Rochester: Camden House, 2017)

African Women: Early History to the 21st Century, Kathleen Sheldon
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2017)

Katherine Joseph: Photographing an Era of Social Significance, Suzanne Hertzberg
(Washington, D.C.: Bergamont Press, 2016)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 3 'Identity & Transition'  (June 2017)

Jane Welsh Carlyle and her Victorian World: A Story of Love, Work, Friendship and Marriage, Kathy Chamberlain
(London: Duckworth Overlook, 2017)

Stealing Fire: Memoir of Boyhood in the Shadow of Atomic Espionage, Boria Sax
(Decalogue Books, 2014)

The Book of Pears: The Definitive History and Guide to Over 500 Varieties, Joan Morgan, with paintings by Elisabeth Dowle
(Ebury Press, October 2015)

Conservative Counterrevolution: Challenging Liberalism in 1950s Milwaukee, Tula Connell
(University of Illinois Press, April 2016)

Surviving the Twenty-First Century: Essays by William Eaton
(Serving House Books, July 2015)

The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience, Alan E. Johnson
(Philosophia Publications, 2015)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 2 (September 2016) <Download PDF>

Paranormal: A New Testament Scholar Looks at the Afterlife, Valerie Abrahamsen
(Shires Press, 2015)

The Kosher Sutras, Marcus J. Freed
(FreedThinker Books, 2013)

Animals in the Third Reich, 2nd edition, Boria Sax
(Providence, R.I., Yogh & THORN/The Poet's Press, 2000, 2013)

For the Union and the Catholic Church: Four Converts in the Civil War, Max Longley
(NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015)

 

The Independent Scholar Volume 1 'Traditions and Transitions' (December 2015) <Download PDF>

Constructing Identity in an Age of Globalization, eds., James E. Block and Amanda J. Haste 
(Paris: Ex Modio, 2015)

Dance, Consumerism, and Spirituality, C.S. Walter
(New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

The Kabbalah Sutras: 49 Steps to Enlightenment, Marcus Freed
(Los Angeles, CA: FreedThinker Books, 2015)

The American Dream in Vietnamese, Nhi T. Lieu
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011)