Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Spring 1999
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 1999, pp. 134-35.
Abstract
The goal of encyclopedias is to make knowledge readily and objectively available to a wide audience. Generally massive undertakings requiring a number of years to complete, they succeed or fail depending not only on accuracy but on their flexibility as reference works to interest a wide range of audiences, both as stopping or starting points for research. Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod, no strangers to undertaking large projects such as biographical dictionaries, have compiled an excellent Encyclopedia of the American West.
Joining Howard W. Lamar's masterful Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West (1977), now available in a revised edition (1998), the Encyclopedia of the American West is a major comprehensive reference work on the West. Relying on an editorial board that included public historians Gerald George and B. Byron Price, and scholars Peggy Pascoe, Martin Ridge, Hal Rothman, Vicky L. Ruiz, and Robert M. Utley, its editors also employed the expertise of nearly four hundred practitioners of western history during their fiveyear project.
The hefty four-volume set of nearly 2,000 pages contains some 1,700 entries, arranged alphabetically, presenting generally accepted facts and synthesizing current theories and viewpoints. Additional features make it both easily accessible and useful to the student, scholar, and general public. Volume one contains listings of all articles and authors; volume four provides a thorough index (110 pages). Hundreds of small black-and-white photographs illustrate the work. Words or ideas in articles that appear elsewhere are clearly marked, and entries appearing under different headings are cross-referenced. Finally, an ample list of suggested readings at the end of each entry directs users to traditional classics as well as recent articles and specialized monographs.
Comments
Copyright 1999 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln