Reference Reviews

Lawrence Looks at Books

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, edited by Jay Kinsbrunner and Erick D. Langer. 6 vols. 5,482p. Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. 978-0-684-31270-5; 2008-3461. $695.

With this new edition, the most comprehensive and authoritative encyclopedia of Latin American history in English has a received a substantial facelift. As with the previous edition the 5,824 articles survey encompass the whole of Latin America from Mexico to Argentina and from prehistory to the present. This new edition features 568 entirely new topics with hundreds more articles revised, re-written or entirely replaced. Many of the new entries reflect the recent emergence of political figures like Mexico’s Vicente Fox Quesada and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Others profile prominent new figures in art, music and entertainment. Greater attention is also given to trade agreements, emigration, native peoples, non-Spanish speaking Caribbean countries, and selected historical figures. To provide additional orientation, major overview articles have been added on race and ethnicity, migration, democracy, Hispanics in the United States, economic development, hemispheric affairs, “nationhood and the imagination,” and globalization. Advances in scholarship are apparent in entries on prehistoric cultures, ethnology, literature and other disciplines. The bibliographies of more than two thirds of the entries have been updated substantially. While the revised edition includes over 600 new, color photographs, there is little gain in the number of illustrations, because many historical illustrations were not carried over from the previous edition. Unfortunately, the indexing is also slightly weaker in this edition with the periods of countries history no longer being reflected under the main entry heading. Useful new features include a historical chronology and a thematic outline of topical essays. A subject guide to the more than 3,300 biographies arranges entries into 21 areas of professional activity, and lists women separately for easy identification. As a whole this new edition, usefully updates an outstanding resource for public and academic libraries.
—John R.M. Lawrence