I feel baffled that a literature review takes only 2-4 pages in length. It just does not seem right that something which at first seems so complex really should be so short. The first piece I really have to give credit for one point. Wright does a good job of bringing up the point of how people love to make pieces of history disappear or fit to match the present. In his piece he discusses the often forgotten use of slave labor in New England. This is a point I have addressed before. I often state that the way things are taught in schools is incorrect and we should be teaching a more accurate history instead of appealing to the interests of some ruling via legislature.
In the review by Menard he argues for the importance of another often disregarded perspective. The British had a wonderful supply of natural resources in their grasp in the form of the American colonies in the New World. However, many of the natural resources that were sent to Britain were harvested by slave labors. It is a long standing tradition that Britain is painted in a light where they abolished slavery many many years before it was done in the American colonies, but this shows that they had a form of “proxy-slavery” through its colonies in the New World.
Tags: hist299moon
I can understand your point about the length of the reviews, but it is important to remember these are reviews and going on about the details of a book isn’t exactly a review. The audience of a literature review wants short generalizations with points about how the book will contribute to previous studies.
I was equally baffled by the length of these reviews. Perhaps this is meant to be a hint to those of us who don’t write as concisely as we should that we need to summarize better. After all, if these professionals are doing it, than it must be possible. It hurts me to cut down my style, due to my love affair with adverbs, adjectives, and run-on sentences. We shall have to soldier through.