Book Review Guidelines
ANTH 307/Ecological Anthropology
Spring 2007
Dr. Roberts

Format

These reviews are worth 35 points each. The one on Fratkin’s book (Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya) will be due on March 7th (midterm) and the review of Reed’s book (Forest Dwellers, Forest Protectors) will be due on the last day of class, Apil 25th. Late submissions will be penalized 5 points per day late. These reviews must be typed and double-spaced. Length is not necessarily indicative of quality. Nevertheless,  I’d say it would be difficult to do a credible job in less than 5 pages. If you cite the book verbatim then please insert the citation in quotation marks and place the page number in parentheses afterward; e.g., Barley claims that "[i]t is a common trait of returned fieldworkers, as they stumble around their own culture with the clumsiness of returned astronauts, to be simply uncritically grateful to be a westerner, living in a culture that seems suddenly very precious and vulnerable..." (189-190). If the quote exceeds five lines, although there's really no reason why it should, then it should be single spaced and left indented.

I will not deduct points specifically for mechanical reasons, i.e., for grammar, punctuation, and especially spelling. However, I would hope that you'll take pride in the quality of your writing. A large part of that should involve proofreading before you hand in the final copy. Nothing suggests a hastily written paper like numerous typos. 

Substance

Although you need to convince me that you actually read the book, I do not want excessive regurgitation of ethnographic details provided by the authors. After all, I will be asking you questions from the books on the exams! What I do hope to see is a critical review done by you of these books. Please feel free to express your opinion of the book, but these thoughts must have some empirical bases.

Your review should minimally address the following: 1) How did this book illustrate a particular issue or issues within the context of ecological anthropology? 2) What paradigm(s) or school(s) of thought within ecological anthropology does the author seem to be working within? 3) What techniques did the author use in examining this/these topic(s)? 4) How does the substance of this book relate to the topics that we're covering this semester? 
4) Did you find the book interesting and/or well written? Why/why not? Anything else of relevance is up to you. 

Last of all, try to have fun with it!