Books, book reviews and oppression

The International Journal of Lifelong Education is one of those journals that still invites and publishes book reviews. The journal values books and book reviews, although this stance seems increasingly at odds with the values of contemporary scholarship and commercial publishing. In this editorial, we consider the value of the book form and the book review genre in the light of the journal’s history, extending arguments presented in an earlier editorial, ‘Academic journals and the politics of publication in adult, continuing and lifelong education’ (Milana et al., Citation2016). Among the activities of the editors relating to the journal’s 40th anniversary, data was gathered on its book reviews. Looking back over the four decades of the journal it was striking that the humble book review had been a significant form of scholarship, both quantitatively and in terms of depth of questioning of and speculation on the field. An analysis of book reviews as they appear in successive volumes of the International Journal of Lifelong Education was performed and main results are shared below. The evident decline in the book review as a vehicle for reflection on adult and lifelong learning and education scholarship is also considered and some implications elaborated. We wonder what is lost through the trend away from the book-form that we see in contemporary research and which is reflected in the quantity of book reviews published in the journal over time.