Why write book reviews?

The pressure to publish or perish or, more recently, to be visible or vanish, marginalises a culture of critical reading and reflection that has historically been the province of book reviews. Today, book reviews are roundly rejected by academic bureaucrats as unimportant, easy to write and hence, easy to get published, mere summaries, uncritical statements of praise, marketing gimmicks and poorly cited so they are shunted to the tail-end of academic tasks. Historical dialectical analysis shows that the disdain for book reviews is implicitly related to their non-pecuniary characteristics. One contradiction in the status quo is that academics expect to be served but they are discouraged from serving and hence are led down a line of being selfish. Writing book reviews, therefore, is good not only for its many academic and social uses, but also for political and ethical reasons.