The book review flourished in tandem with the Enlightenment. Both are in decline, leaving a great deal at stake. David Bell explains (opens in new tab)

Book reviewing, it would seem, has been in crisis from the start. As early as 1757, a contributor to Britain’s Literary Magazine complained that “critic is no longer an appellation of dignity,” because book reviewers had turned into “Visigoths,” “critical torturers” who took “malicious pleasure” in tearing authors apart. A century and a half later,...