First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Designed for the "informed reader" rather than the specialist, this encyclopedia includes writers from non-Western cultures as well as the Western canon. The entries, arranged alphabetically, consist of three types of essays--on individuals, nations or geographical areas, and topics. The topics were suggested by 19 advisors and prepared by approximately 400 contributors. Within some entries there may be chronological arrangement. Each entry is signed and followed by
see also references and an often extensive bibliography or further reading list. Biographical entries include brief biographical notes. Length ranges from half a page to more than 12 pages for
United States: Nineteenth Century.A list of advisors and contributors and an introduction, "Rethinking History," can be found at the beginning of volume 1. Both volumes provide alphabetical and thematic lists of entries and a chronological list of historians. The thematic list groups entries by region and periods (Europe, medieval, for example) and topics, from art history to women's and gender history. The chronological list begins in 551^-479 B.C.E. with Kong-zi (Confucius) and concludes with Australian historian Marilyn Lake (1947^-). Volume 2 concludes with a title index, a "Further Reading Index," and notes on contributors and advisors. The title index provides access to the principal writings listed in the entries on individual historians. The "Further Reading Index," arranged by author, leads the reader to citations in the bibliographies.
The choice of entries reflects a global intellectual culture that has led to new branches of history and debate: social history, with influences from anthropology and sociology; gender studies; and metahistory, to name a few. The encyclopedia leads the reader both to familiar historians, such as Edward Gibbon and Plutarch, and to the less well known, such as Fernando Ortiz, the founder of Afro-Cuban studies. There are essays on slavery, ancient and modern; Vietnamese chronicles, which are an important source of Vietnamese history from the Tran dynasty (1225^-1400) onward; the study of crime and deviance; and labor history. Notable historians or history writers from places as far-flung as Iceland and India are given coverage. Another recent title, Garland's one-volume Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing [RBB D 15 98], has a similarly broad perspective; but entries are generally briefer and coverage is more selective. Only a few living historians are included, for example, while the Fitzroy Dearborn set has entries for more than 200, among them Stephen Ambrose, Eric Foner, Peter Gay, Elaine Pagels, and Simon Schama. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing is a worthy addition to the reference collections of large public and academic libraries.
