Book Reviews
One popular complaint is that book reviews are merely a byproduct of the
publishing industry and therefore stink of mediocrity, elitism,
nepotism, or all three. In 1846, Poe wrote that book reviews (and the
publishing industry) were a sham and riddled with nepotism: "We place on
paper without hesitation a tissue of flatteries, to which in society we
could not give utterance, for our lives, without either blushing or
laughing outright." In 1917, H.L. Mencken bemoaned the "inconceivable
complacency and conformity" of journalistic criticism. Forty years
later, Elizabeth Hardwick echoed these sentiments when she said of
reviewing, "Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene; a
universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns." Alan Forrest on an account exploring the military, social and political state of Britain as it battled Napoleon's forces
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