During the late 1990s, Junius Rodriguez, a historian, edited several slave encyclopedias including the Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (Rodriguez, 1997) and Chronology of World Slavery (Rodriguez, 1999). The Historical Encyclopedia of World History received the Outstanding Academic Title in 1998 from Choice, so Greenwood Press was wise to support Rodriguez as the editor for this new project.
The preface states that this “reference work is designed to challenge perceptions and to educate in a new way. By focusing upon the largely ignored history of resistance and noncooperation”. This encyclopedia includes over 260 alphabetical entries written by over 90 scholars with a useful Guide to Related Topics and a good index. By reviewing the Guide to Related Topics section readers get a better sense of how this text is organized. The editor engages the reader by including a section of primary documents. These documents range from slave narratives to historical newspapers and government documents. Entries are well written and the bibliography introduces users to some critical texts for further readings about slave resistance.
Readers will find that this encyclopaedia is not limited to the rebellions in the USA, but includes slave resistance in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Mexico, and Central and South America. Entries also include slave narratives and literary works, such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs. Rodriguez also highlights prominent intellectuals who contributed to the scholarship about slave rebellions and the economic impact of slavery such as Herbert Aptheker (American Negro Slave Revolts, 1943), Eugene D. Genovese (Political Economy of Slavery, 1965), and C.L.R. (Cyril Lionel Robert) James (Black Jacobins, 1938). Although this encyclopedia provides a great overview of slave rebellions, an entry detailing freedom suits would compliment the Laws and the Courts entry. Freedom suits are important court records that unveil a new history of slaves actively seeking their freedom, dispelling the myth that slaves were content in a state of unlawful servitude. This proved that in 1846 the freedom suit filed by Dred Scott and his wife Harriett Scott was not an anomaly. To date a total of 305 petitions are available in the Freedom Suit Case Files, 1814‐1860, as part of the St Louis Circuit Court Historical Record Project (Missouri State Archives, 2001).
Slavery has always been a part of human history and it is important to document the actions of slaves who fought against a deplorable system designed to transform them into movable property. This encyclopaedia is an important contribution and is one of the best encyclopaedias in the Greenwood Milestones in African American History series. Libraries interested in this title should also be aware that Rodriguez is the editor for two new encyclopedias that will be published this year, Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia (Rodriguez, 2007b) (review forthcoming in Reference Reviews) and Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World (Rodriguez, 2007a).
