Book Reviews

Book Reviews

The Historical Journal of Massachusetts is looking for reviewers for the following books. If you are interested, please click here to download our Book Reviewer Application. We welcome suggestions of other new publications which are not on this list that focus on either Massachusetts or New England history. Reviews should be 800-1,500 words, please click here to download our guidelines.

We also publish reviews of exhibits and websites sponsored by museums and historic sites relating to Massachusetts history. Reviews are published in the order that they are received.

Note: Books are sent on a “first-come, first-served” basis, so some books on this list may no longer be available. For the most up-to-date list, please email assistant.masshistory@westfield.ma.edu. Books are sent one at a time to reviewers.

Books Available for Review

Please email assistant.masshistory@westfield.ma.edu to request a book.

The following list was last updated 4/4/2023.

Book reviews are published in order they are received. We recommend a review be 800-1,500 words long. Book reviews are accepted on a rolling basis, but we hope you will complete the review within six months of receipt of the book.

General Historical Overviews

  1. Sammarco, Anthony M. Lost Boston. (2014) (152 pp.)
  2. Pastore, Christopher L. Between Land and Sea: The Atlantic Coast and the Transformation of New England. (2014) (302 pp.)
  3. Allen, David Grayson. Investment Management in Boston: A History. (2015) (433 pp.)
  4. Morrison, Dane Anthony & Lusignan Schultz, Nancy. Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory (2015) (348 pp.)
  5. Sinton, John. Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape & History. (2018) (299 pp.)
  6. Luey, Beth. At Home: Historic Houses of Eastern Massachusetts. (2019) (274 pp.)
  7. Frank, Thomas Edward. Historic Houses of Worship in Peril. (2020) (145 pp.)
  8. Phaneuf, Wayne E. & Carvalho, Joseph III. The City of Westfield Massachusetts Celebrates 350 Years. (2019) (236 pp.)
  9. Moniz, William A. Granite, Grit, & Grace: An Exploration of the Fascinating Side Streets of Fall River’s History. (2017) (467 pp.)
  10. Seasholes, Nancy S. The Atlas of Boston History. (2019) (209 pp.)
  11. Kovaleski, Dave. Hidden History of Worcester. (2021) (142 pp.)
  12. Duquette, Jerold and O’Brien, Erin (ed). The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism: Reputation Meets Reality. (2022) (300 pp.)

Colonial Period, American Revolution, and Early Republic to 1800

  1. Wisecup, Kelly. Medical Encounters: Knowledge and Identity in Early American Literatures. (2013) (259 pp.) 
  2. Atkinson, Jay. Massacre on the Merrimack: Hannah Duston’s Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America. (2015) (310 pp.) 
  3. Thornton, Tamara Plakins. Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers. (2016) (402 pp.) 
  4. Gilson, Thomas E. and William Gilson. Carved in Stone: The Artistry of Early New England Gravestones. (2012) (124 pp.) 
  5. Lipman, Andrew. The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast. (2015) (360 pp.)  
  6. Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. (2014) (398 pp.)
  7. Fisher, Julie A. Silverman, David J. Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narragansetts: Diplomacy, War, and the Balance of Power in Seventeenth-Century New England and Indian Country. (2014). (114 pp.)  
  8. Hammer, Carl. Pugnacious Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Hadley and New England. (2018) (103 pp.) 
  9. Jarrett Morris, M. Michelle. Under Household Government: Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts. (2013) (246 pp.)
  10. Hammer, Carl I. People, Politics, and Society in Colonial Massachusetts. (2021) (223 pp.)
  11. Warren, James A. God, War and Providence. (2018) (287 pp.)
  12. Breen, T.H. The Will of the People: The Revolutionary Birth of America. (2019) (261 pp.)
  13. Scherr, Arthur. John Adams, Slavery and Race: Ideas, Politics and Diplomacy in an Age of Crisis. (2018) (278 pp.)
  14. Hardesty, Jared Ross. Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston. (2016) (225 pp.)

19th Century

  1. Gordon, Lyndall. Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Family’s Feuds. (2010) (405 pp.)
  2. Johnson, Cynthia Mestad. James DeWolf and the Rhode Island Slave Trade. (2014) (159 pp.)
  3. Moland, Lydia. Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life. (2022) (478 pp.)
  4. Hogan, Margaret A, Taylor, C. James. A Traveled First Lady: Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams. (2014) (416 pp.)
  5. Williams, Donald E. Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott and Brown vs. Board of Education (2014) (476 pp.)
  6. Bushman, Claudia L. Going to Boston: Harriet Robinson’s Journey to New Womanhood. (2017) (259 pp.)
  7. Morser, Eric J. The Fires of New England: A Story of Protest and Rebellion in Antebellum America. (2017) (230 pp.)
  8. Booth, Robert. Mad for Glory: Two American Warlords at Large in the Pacific—Imperialism and Nation-Building, 1813. (2016) (244 pp.)
  9. McKenzie, Matthew. Breaking the Banks: Representation and Realties in New England Fisheries, 1866-1966. (2018) (208 pp.)
  10. Dann, Kevin. Expect Great Things: The Life and Search of Henry David Thoreau. (2017) (387 pp.)
  11. Adams, Edward Stowe. Anti-Slavery Days in Fall River and the Operation of the Underground Railroad. (2017) (137 pp.)
  12. Woods Weierman, Karen. The Case of the Slave-Child, Med. (2019) (125 pp.)
  13. McMaster, Robert T. All the Light Here Comes from Above: The Life and Legacy of Edward Hitchcock. (2021) (369 pp.)
  14. Dowling, David O. Surviving the Essex: The Afterlife of America’s Most Storied Shipwreck. (2016)
  15. Bosco, Ronald and Joel Myerson (eds). Emerson: Bicentennial Essays. (2009) (452 pp.)
  16. Field, Jacqueline, Marjorie Senechal, Madelyn Shaw. American Silk 1830-1930: Entrepreneurs and Artifacts. (2007) (257 pp.) *Features three (3) different silk factories from MA, NH, and NY.
  17. O’Gorman, James F. Isaiah Rogers: Architectural Practice in Antebellum America. (2015) (290 pp.)
  18. Senechal de la Roche, Roberta (Ed.). “Our Aim Was Man”: Andrew’s Sharpshooters in the American Civil War. (2016) (320 pp.)
  19. Guthery, Scott B. Practical Purposes: Readers in Experimental Philosophy at the Boston Athenaeum (1827-1850). (2017) (370 pp.)
  20. Wagner von Hoff, Dorothy. Ornamenting the “Cold Roast”: The Domestic Interior Design of Upper-Class Boston Homes, 1760-1880. (2013) (337 pp.)
  21. Romer, Robert H. ‘I am a Bitter Enemy to Slavery’: An Amherst College Student Goes to War: Christopher Pennell (1842-1864). (2021) (141 pp.)
  22. Campbell, Lyndsay M. Truth and Privilege: Libel Law in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, 1820-1840. (2022) (470 pp.)
  23. White, Jonathan W., Davis, Lydia J., ed. My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss. (2021) (205 pp.)
  24. Porwancher, A., Mazeitis, J., Jipp, T., & Coffey, A. The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy. (2022) (144 pp.)

20th & 21st Centuries

  1. Botticelli, Jim. Dirty Old Boston: Four Decades of a City in Transition. (2014) (238 pp.)
  2. Low, Denise. The Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival. (2017) (200 pp.)
  3. Marion, Paul. Mill Power: The Origin and Impact of Lowell National Historical Park. (2014) (267 pp.)
  4. Kennedy, Patrick L., Lawrence W. Kennedy. Bricklayer Bill: The Untold Story of The Workingman’s Boston Marathon. (2017). (318 pp.)
  5. Weber, Jody. The Evolution of Aesthetic and Expressive Dance in Boston. (2009)
  6. Sirman, Brian M. Concrete Changes: Architecture Politics, and the Design of Boston City Hall. (2018) (272 pp.)
  7. Lowance, Mason (Jr.) (Ed.). Amherst Rotary Goes to War. (2018) (211 pp.)
  8. Moore, Honor. Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury. (2020) (383 pp.)
  9. Wilk, Stephen R. Lost Wonderland: The Brief and Brilliant Life of Boston’s Million Dollar Amusement Park. (2020) (216 pp.)
  10. Nyberg, Lyle. Summer Suffragists: Woman Suffragists in Scituate, Massachusetts. (2020) (261 pp.)
  11. Grimley, Chris, Michael Kubo, Mark Pasnik. Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston. (2015) (336 pp.)
  12. Rosenberg, Elizabeth C. Before the Flood: Destruction, Community, and Survival in the Drowned Towns of the Quabbin. (2021) (232 pp.)
  13. Gallagher, Charles R. Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front. (2021) (313 pp.)

Historical Fiction

  1. Redfearn, James. The Rising at Roxbury Crossing. (novel) (2012) (421 pp.)
    *Set in 1919 Boston
  2. Francis, Richard. Crane Pond: A Novel of Salem. (novel) (2016) (350 pp.)
    *Set during the Salem Witch Trials

Peer Reviewers

In addition, we are currently seeking new peer reviewers to help evaluate submitted articles. They are usually asked to review one article per year relating to a topic of their choice.

Qualifications: M.A. degree or special expertise in an area; journal or other publications. If interested, please download and complete the reviewer form highlighted above.