For middle-school students and up, this profusely illustrated and well-designed set provides current data on the physical geography, economy, government, and people of more than 190 countries, with a special emphasis on the environment. Two aspects that make this work unique are the quality of the more than 2,500 photographs and the emphasis placed on regional considerations.
The contributors are an international array of 200 area specialists. The contents of the first 23 volumes are arranged by place. Like many other sets compiled in Great Britain, far more coverage is given to Europe and North America than to the Third World; for example, one volume is devoted to France while all of South America is covered in one volume. Each volume is divided into two sections: country profiles and regional profiles. The country profiles range in length from 1 page to almost 50 and provide basic information about each nation. The regional profiles describe physical geography, habitats and their conservation, animal and plant life, agriculture, the economy, peoples and culture, cities, government, and environmental issues. The text is accompanied by feature articles (e.g., "Hindus in the Caribbean," "Epiphytes in the Rainforest"), boxed insets, graphs and charts, and full-color maps and artwork. Each volume also includes an index, gazetteer, glossary, and a very brief list of further readings. Volume 24 has a cumulative index, plus various thematic indexes on topics such as religions, languages, political parties, physical features, and vegetation zones.
This work compares favorably with both the six-volume Lands and Peoples (Grolier, 1993) and The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places (1992). Lands and Peoples is arranged geographically, but then presents information in a country-by-country format. World Book arranges country entries alphabetically. Their accessible language make them suitable for younger readers, beginning with those in the upper-elementary grades. Each volume of the eventual 11-volume series, Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Geography (Oxford, 1990- ), addresses one theme, such as world government, resources and industry, planet management, or human settlement. However, it does not always provide comprehensive coverage of nations, concentrating instead on distinctive or special situations.
Public, middle-school, and high-school collections will want to consider the Encyclopedia of World Geography because of its high quality and unique approach.
