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The key to a successful program of scholarly book publishing lies with the knowledge, creativity, and drive of the commissioning (acquisitions) editor. Peer review is a useful tool for testing and confirming the editor's judgment and arguing the case for publication, but the role of peer review alone can often be overrated. Too many funding and appointment systems are based on a fetishised image of this concept. Despite the debates and changing perceptions about scholarly books, it is editorial excellence that underlies the quality and importance of a list. While journals rely more on the formal process of peer review, the role of the entrepreneurial journal editor also remains important to scholarly communication.The phrase 'peer review' has become a byword over the last forty-five years 1 in discourse about academic institutions, research funding, research quality, and scholarly life. Its real importance, value, and role -especially in scholarly book publishing -merit debate.Although frequently cited or assumed in the context of academic book publishing, peer review -and the way it is perceived to operate -is most formally embedded in the world of scholarly journals. 2 The term itself is disingenuous. The dictionary definition of a peer is an equal, one belonging to the same societal group especially based on age, grade, or status, 3 or a person of the same age, status, or ability as another specified person. 4 A junior academic submitting material intends for a more established academic to the work; a senior academic under double-blind reviewing may well expect to be reviewed by his or her juniors. Peer reviewers are commonly those scholars who are motivated to keep abreast of their field by reading and adjudging new work before it is published, or are working as part of a team of trusted advisors at the cutting edge of their field. So peer reviewing is only sometimes undertaken by the specific writer's peers.

The familiar term 'pseudoarchaeology' allows us to categorise and comfortingly dismiss a diverse group of alternative presentations of the past, and reinforce our own professionalism as scholars and scientists. Glyn Daniel regularly denounced the ideas of a 'lunatic fringe' in Antiquity editorials, and contributors to a recent unforgiving book analyse 'how pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past' (Fagan 2006). Other terms like 'alternative' or 'cult' archaeologies describe the same phenomena, and it is appropriate to consider elements of pseudohistory in the same argument. The conventional image is of a clear gap between the knowledge gained through our scholarly and scientific research and thinking, and the illusory pasts and falsehoods created by others. But such a binary division does present

The key to a successful program of scholarly book publishing lies with the knowledge, creativity, and drive of the commissioning (acquisitions) editor. Peer review is a useful tool for testing and confirming the editor's judgment and arguing the case for publication, but the role of peer review alone can often be overrated. Too many funding and appointment systems are based on a fetishised image of this concept. Despite the debates and changing perceptions about scholarly books, it is editorial excellence that underlies the quality and importance of a list. While journals rely more on the formal process of peer review, the role of the entrepreneurial journal editor also remains important to scholarly communication.