Reference Reviews

Doug’s Student Reference Room

Gale Encyclopedia of World History: War. 2 vols. 711 p. Detroit: Gale, 2008. ISBN 13: 978-1-4144-3152-9; ISBN 10: 1-4144-3152-X. $220.

Like its Governments counterpart, the Gale Encyclopedia of World History: War provides a starting place for examination of an aspect of world history from ancient to modern times. The two-volume set looks at 32 major conflicts throughout history, beginning with the Assyrian Conquests and concluding with the War on Terror. Each chapter begins with a single-page overview, followed by sections on major figures, major battles, key elements of war craft and the impact of the war. As with other sets in this series, the consistent organizational format allows for easy comparison across different wars, whether analyzing key people, battle tactics, technologies, or long-term effects of the war. The post-World War II entries lean toward American interests, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Iran-Iraq war and the “Global War on Terrorism.” Absent are the post-colonial wars in Africa, the Six Day War in Israel, the Balkans conflicts and many other wars of interest. Nevertheless, this collection provides in-depth extensions of many of the typical standards in world and U.S. history classes and would be a valuable addition to high school collections, both in print and in the eBook version. Recommended for high school and public libraries.
—Doug Achterman