Academic Writing

4 Model book review
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Study the following review and discuss with a partner whether there is anything else
that you think the reviewer should have included.
Atlantic Crossing: A Comparison of European and American Society
by Marcus Montero (ed.) York: York University Press, 2008. 378 pp., £35.00,
ISBN 987-0-15-980456-3
This useful and important edited volume partly fills a gap in the comparative
political science literature. The book compares the society and politics of the
European Union (treated here as a single state) with the United States. The book
examines ‘convergences and divergences’ between these two global powers, similar
in size and economic weight ‘but asymmetric in terms of political influence and
military might’ (p. 1).
The book has eight chapters. The introductory and concluding chapters, which hold
the volume together, are written by the editor. The first briefly outlines the adopted
comparative approach and methodological challenges faced in producing this study.
Montero then goes on to argue that the EU and the US offer two contrasting models
of Western modernity. The final chapter argues that the process of constructing the
EU has led to convergence, not divergence, between the EU and the US. In between

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are six sectoral chapters; of particular interest is the third, by Kuhl, which argues

that the quality of the democratic experience is in decline on both sides of the
Atlantic.
This is a well-written work that breaks new ground in treating the EU as a single
state. However, the book was published in 2008, a year after the EU had enlarged to
27 states. The authors fail to deal fully with this ‘geographic boundary’ problem.
This neglect of the newest member states is repeated throughout the volume and
brings into question the validity of the book’s wider conclusions.
4.2: Literature Reviews and Book Reviews
215

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