Swords, chainsaws, and edited volumes

I'm not the only one with a dim view of the value of edited volumes. As I've expressed previously ("Why are so many edited volumes worthless?") most edited volumes in archaeology are insufficiently integrated, have too many poor quality essays, and do a poor job of advancing research. I was thus not surprised to find the following comments in a recent book review published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. This was a review of "Comparing Cities: the Middle East and South Asia" (ed. by Ali and Rieker, Oxford Univ press, 2010. Review 2011, JRAI 17:671-672); review by Hayder Al-Mohammad:

"one is left to wonder what this edited volume is hoping to respond to or push in terms of new resesarch, ideas, and methods." (p.671)

"Comparing Cities should be a warning to future editors of volumes that readers require more than just a number of articles thrown together in one book to make it a worthy and coherent read." (p.672)

Well, I an dubious about whether the poor quality of any single edited volume will serve as a warning for future volume editors. If so, the genre of poor edited volume would not still be flourishing. 
 
 Unfortunately the kind of quality control shown in the cartoon above is typically absent from the evaluation of edited volumes by publishers. Maybe if we had more tough-looking reviewers armed with swords and chainsaws, and fewer pussycats armed with badminton rackets, the quality of archaeological edited volumes might improve.
Here are my older posts on edited volumes:

• Why are so many edited volumes worthless?
• Buried in an edited volume.
• Sloppy editing of edited volumes.