Having sorted English and European history with various collaborators, the redoubtable Chris Cook, in tandem with David Waller, Senior Lecturer in American Politics at Nene College, now turns his attention to the USA in this convenient reference work intended for both teachers and students of modern American history. Covering the period from the War of Independence to the presidential election of November 1996, and contemporary American politics in the middle l990s, this Handbook brings together 31 different topics grouped under four main subject headings: political history (the constitution, executive, legislature, and judicature, political parties, and elections); social and religious history (public health and social welfare, education, slavery and abolition, Black American history, the American Indians, the women’s movement, religion, temperance and prohibition, popular protest and public order, pacifism, the environment, and the gay and lesbian movement); economic history (population, immigration, government income and expenditure, prices and inflation, banking and finance, the labour movement, employment and unemployment, industry and trade, agriculture, and transport); and foreign affairs and defence (treaties and alliances, and warfare and the armed services). In all these great use is made of chronologies: in fact the Handbook begins with an extended 50‐page chronology of political history, whilst most of the other topics start off with a chronology of key events. Lists and statistical tables also play a prominent part in encapsulating a mass of information within a short compass, the whole making a succinct and readily accessible compendium.
A 40‐page Biographies section profiles the careers of some 250 leading personalities and, for students with no background in American government or politics, there is an extremely useful glossary (pp. 299‐366) not only of historical terms, but also of basic political terms they will encounter in their textbooks. A brave attempt to condense the vast literature on American history to manageable proportions takes the shape of 19 short, thematically arranged bibliographical essays (pp. 370‐408) which will undoubtedly prove a boon to students embarking on research into specific areas. For good measure, two appendices print the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. Of value to all reference libraries, the softcover edition will be acquired in multiple copies by academic libraries supporting relevant courses. The wise student, and the insecure teacher, needing the comfort of factual back‐up, will no doubt buy their own individual copies. And so they should.
