Robin Rowland's Blog - Posts Tagged "wwii"
Prisoners of the Empire: a disappointing, cherry-picked mishmash
Journalists believe in "first get it right" Do academics?
Earlier this summer I saw a prepublication notice for Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of the Empire Inside Japanese POW Camps where the Harvard University Press promotion called the book “A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners.” I eagerly pre-ordered the book.
I was expecting an insightful addition to the Far East Prisoner of War (FEPOW) academic literature since it was by a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and published by Harvard University Press. Prisoners of the Empire is profoundly disappointing. I hadn’t originally intended to write a review; I bought the book from personal and family interest. Up until now I have never blogged bad reviews, but in this case the problems of Prisoners of the Empire are, unfortunately, overwhelming.
Prisoners of the Empire contains glaring errors and serious omissions. There is substantial information in Prisoners of the Empire, but that is lost because what Kovner has mostly produced is an unfocused mishmash that fails to fulfil her stated aim of “analytic rigour that academic historians have used to examine much less consequential subjects.”
Complete review on my blog
Prisoners of the Empire: a disappointing, cherry-picked mishmash
Earlier this summer I saw a prepublication notice for Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of the Empire Inside Japanese POW Camps where the Harvard University Press promotion called the book “A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners.” I eagerly pre-ordered the book.
I was expecting an insightful addition to the Far East Prisoner of War (FEPOW) academic literature since it was by a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and published by Harvard University Press. Prisoners of the Empire is profoundly disappointing. I hadn’t originally intended to write a review; I bought the book from personal and family interest. Up until now I have never blogged bad reviews, but in this case the problems of Prisoners of the Empire are, unfortunately, overwhelming.
Prisoners of the Empire contains glaring errors and serious omissions. There is substantial information in Prisoners of the Empire, but that is lost because what Kovner has mostly produced is an unfocused mishmash that fails to fulfil her stated aim of “analytic rigour that academic historians have used to examine much less consequential subjects.”
Complete review on my blog
Prisoners of the Empire: a disappointing, cherry-picked mishmash
