Leslie Howsam

Very disappointing. Average essays, poorly compiled and edited, managing to be neither nationally engaging nor globally intriguing, this is a book that falsely promises a general appeal but achieves thunderous boredom for a select audience of initiates. A handful of the essays are competent; most are dull and selective; more than a few are painfully obtuse and irrelevant.

Fantastic balance of scholarship ON scholarship about books with an interesting set of prescriptions about where such studies will go in future.