This two volume hardbound set aims to provide a fairly comprehensive reference work to the fascinating area of human evolution; or as the book terms it “an authoritative and accessible source of information about the hominin clade of the tree of life”. Drawing on an international team of talented evolutionary scientists with broad and comprehensive coverage, at first glance it seems that this would be an excellent addition to any science or institutional library. And then I caught sight of the price tag.
We will return to that later. The book opens with a list of the writers which is followed by a seven page opening essay on the field of human evolution by Francisco J. Ayala. This is followed by a three‐page preface, which sets out the scope and structure of the work, and then two pages of acknowledgements. Next there is a 65 page topic entry list grouping major entries and subentries alphabetically; for example all the concepts related to anatomy are listed in sequence. This is a useful aid in terms of identifying key topics and subtopics for the reader and is likely to be of interest for the expert or advanced student. However, the absence of any page references from this list to the main subject entries in the body of the work makes it of little value to the novice or casual reader seeking a navigational aid. Before the main body of the work begins there are two final pages; one of common abbreviations and the other is a brief note on informal taxonomic categories.
After the main body of subject entries in both volumes (A‐K in volume 1, L‐Z in volume 2) the work closes with an extensive 124 pages of references, doubtless of value to the serious scholar consulting this work, but less so the casual reader. It should be noted that both volumes repeat these sections as adjuncts to the main body of the text; which means that around 200 of the 1,264 pages are duplicates. In this reviewer's opinion this reduces the effective page count down to around the 1,000 mark.
Turning to the core of the book the 5,000 or so entries in the main text are arranged alphabetically over 852 pages. Each ranges in length from a cross‐reference stub to a few that span a page or more. The vast majority of the entries are around a paragraph or two in length. The writing style is clear, brief and to the point in most cases. Anyone looking to obtain a sharply written definition for evolutionary terminology will likely find it well articulated within this work. Some of the longer entries (e.g. Pre‐Neanderthal Hypothesis) are a rather densely written in more specialist language, which might preclude their usage by the layman. However, key terms within these entries are highlighted for cross‐referencing and with a little scholarly effort this should prove no barrier at all.
The text itself is quite densely laid out on the page and is printed in a relatively small font. This, combined with the compact page size, will not prove an aid to the reader with any visual acuity issues. However, the text is crisply reproduced on the page with a strong contrast betwixt page and typeface. Diagrams and illustrations are conspicuous in their total and complete absence, which makes this work closer to an encyclopedic dictionary and less a true encyclopedia. Likewise, there are no tables of data or charts provided within the work, which is somewhat of a disappointing approach.
Cross‐referencing within individual entries is used commonly to redirect from stub entries successfully (e.g. The Little Ice Age simply redirects to the Holocene entry), and does help the reader to navigate the work. It should be noted that there is no true index to this work, other than the topic index discussed earlier. Once again this will not help the layperson, or struggling reference librarian, to navigate the work in pursuit of an answer.
There is no argument that this is a worthy scholarly text written by experts in their field. It is perhaps presented a little dryly given the absence of diagrams and purely textual approach. However, there are multiple issues that this reviewer has with this work as a suitable library purchase. The unnecessary duplication of references which seems intended solely to raise the page count is one. The poor availability of navigational aids is another, as is the lack of illustrations. And then there is the major issue of the price. £450 for a work that falls rather short of its encyclopedic billing is just far too much for so relatively a slender a body of text. Indeed, in these cash strapped times the price feels insultingly high. Doubtless many major institutions where human evolution is studied will feel it worth the expense, but it seems to this reviewer to be far too much to pay for so basically presented a work and as such I cannot recommend it.
