I’d be very uneasy about any of the scholarship in a book that from your description (and I think at least one other review that I’ve read) just ignores reality on the Kandiaronk stuff, and some of the other things it discusses. If you know you can’t trust them on things they obviously get wrong, can you trust them on any of it? It seems much more likely that if you got experts to review the bits of the book relevant to their areas of expertise, the conclusion would be that a lot of it was worthless, actively misleading, or not even wrong.
Your description of the book makes me want to read it. It sounds fascinating, and stimulating. I just feel like I might learn more by reading a series of rebuttals of their arguments from people who know what they’re talking about.
The Scheidel review is worth reading, though it’s rather hurried. Their argument is quite complex and sometimes a bit fuzzy, and the book has a lot of detail; I think it’ll take some time for academics to chew through it and understand exactly what’s at stake.
Other academic reviews I’ve read haven’t been great—the typical stuff has been “how can they ignore [my narrow narrow subfield]”.
I’d be very uneasy about any of the scholarship in a book that from your description (and I think at least one other review that I’ve read) just ignores reality on the Kandiaronk stuff, and some of the other things it discusses. If you know you can’t trust them on things they obviously get wrong, can you trust them on any of it? It seems much more likely that if you got experts to review the bits of the book relevant to their areas of expertise, the conclusion would be that a lot of it was worthless, actively misleading, or not even wrong.
Your description of the book makes me want to read it. It sounds fascinating, and stimulating. I just feel like I might learn more by reading a series of rebuttals of their arguments from people who know what they’re talking about.
The Scheidel review is worth reading, though it’s rather hurried. Their argument is quite complex and sometimes a bit fuzzy, and the book has a lot of detail; I think it’ll take some time for academics to chew through it and understand exactly what’s at stake.
Other academic reviews I’ve read haven’t been great—the typical stuff has been “how can they ignore [my narrow narrow subfield]”.