Africana: New Reference Books

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience edited Kwame A. Appiah & Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
REF DT14.A37435 2005 (5 Volumes)

Thoroughly revised and massively expanded, this monumental work merits a place in any college collection. Alphabetically arranged but backed up by both a detailed index and a topical list of headers in the final volume, the nearly 4500 entries delve into both African and African-American history, from wide-angled studies of "Slavery in Africa" and "Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Interpretation," to close-focus mentions of Malcom X's "Aardvark" references and major "Zydeco" musicians. Most articles are signed and close with "see-also" references. Illustrations are uncommon but well chosen, a blend of clearly designed maps, charts. and graphs, and sharply reproduced prints or color photos. Students seeking information about African music, insight into the failure of school desegregation in the U.S. or the significance of Curt Flood's challenge to baseball's reserve clause, background on the history of colonialism, or hundreds of other historical topics will find both facts and ideas in plenty here. I don't know how we managed to get along without it.