Eric Alterman notes that Peter Beinart's book is racking up some great reviews. Not necessarily great in that they really like Beinart's effort, but great in that they're fascinating, well-crafted, deeply provocative pieces of writing. He links to three in particular -- Kevin Mattson in the Boston Review, Frank Rich in The New York Review of Books, and Kevin Baker in Harper's -- but that's scarcely the tip of the ice berg. Just from memory, Michael Lind took the book on in Democracy, Andrew Bacevich hated on it in The Nation, Michael Tomasky throttled it in The American Prospect, George Packer explored it in The New Yorker, Fred Kaplan engaged it in The Washington Monthly, James Lindsay praised it in The Washington Post, Richard Samuelson went at it in The Claremont Review, etc. Yet, weirdly, few of the reviews were overwhelmingly positive: The book hasn't been so ubiquitous because folks just love it. Nor has it sold remarkably well. So what's with the affection of review pages?
This is partly a quirk of journalism: Very few outlets will simply allow a writer -- even a renowned one -- to publish an essay on a large subject of their choice. Magazine articles require ledes, color, and interviews, while op-eds constrain you to three paragraphs and a bio line. But that doesn't mean writers don't have long, non-reported ideas on big subjects that they'd prefer not to turn into books. So political publishing has come up with a sneaky compromise: Publications will let you spend pages and pages ostensibly reviewing a book, when what you're really doing is crafting an essay on the book's subject. That way, the piece ostensibly "reports" on an event -- the release of a new book. And since many writers want to expound on foreign policy and the left, Beinart's book, which addressed that precise topic, has proved perfect cover.
But do these essays help the books they ostensibly promote? I'm skeptical. In the book-writing business, there are three interested players: The writer, the agent, and the publisher. All three are worried about sales, but rather often, the writer will have a day job that actually pays the bills, and the purpose of the book will largely be prestige and attention. In that case, an unending series of reviews by Important People in Serious Magazines will do the trick. Though many of Beinart's reviews were relatively critical, the fact that so many minds were grappling with his book undoubtedly burnished his reputation. They were certainly good for Peter Beinart
