Book reviews and book notices

The Society welcomes opportunities to draw the attention of members to interesting books relating to medals through reviews that are published in the Journal, typically one or two per edition. However, to avoid any possible conflict of interest, the Society does not canvass books for review but happily considers review requests received from publishers and authors, who may think their books of interest to Society members and who accept the editorial independence of the review in advance.

Once received, a member of the Journal editorial team scans the text to assess the level of medallic content or interest and decides how to proceed. The process for books with a clear medallic dimension is to identify a member of the Society with particular interest or knowledge in the subject – a particular regiment or campaign; a particular focus such as, for example, long service or life-saving awards; technical matters such as naming styles or medal manufacture; or statistics that will help research. This is done by seeking advice from fellow Society members and searching on the Society website for individuals with particular expertise in the subject. Once a reviewer has been selected and has agreed to write a review, the book is sent to him/her with a request for a review of around 650 words. The review is later edited into the Journal style and the reviewer keeps the book as a token reward.

In cases where the medallic content is limited, or perhaps where the subject is thought to help members to add historic context or detail to medals they are researching, a short ‘Book Notice’ is often written that will profile the book without offering an opinion on its merits.

While we have a list of those who have reviewed books for the Journal we happily invite other members who might be interested in helping the Society in this way to get in touch with the Editor. To contact the editor please go to the Contact Us page and choose Book Reviews & Notices from the subject heading menu. If members would like to be considered as book reviewers we would like to encourage them to make sure the medallic interests disclosed in their website profiles are accurate and up to date.