Authored by James W. Ermatinger (PhD in History, Indiana University Bloomington), Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of History, University of Illinois-Springfield, this two-volume encyclopedia is available in both print and electronic formats as here reviewed. According to the author writing in the Introduction, the purpose of this publication is to “[…] explore the lives of average people of a particular time and place through the examination of social, cultural, and material history” (p. xxiii). The historical setting is defined in the Preface as “[…] primarily the Republican period, 509-31 BCE, with a few articles from the Monarchy, 753-509 BCE, and the early Empire, 31 BCE-79CE” (p. xvii).
Volume 1 begins with a three-page Preface, giving an overview of both the entire publication as well as each of the ten major subject areas. The three-page Introduction provides the historical context. There is also a six-page Chronology: From the Founding of Rome (753 BCE) to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (180 CE), which lists important events and the corresponding time period.
The bulk of the two volumes are the individual entries grouped into ten major subject areas: Volume 1: Arts, Economics and Work, Family and Gender, Fashion and Appearance, Food and Drink; and Volume 2: Housing and Community, Politics and Warfare, Recreation and Social Customs, Religion and Beliefs, Science and Technology. Each major subject area has an introduction and between 24-28 alphabetically arranged entries, usually 2 to 3 pages long, pertaining to that area. See also and further readings references are included, and some entries also have illustrations. There are no citations to document the information sources for any of the content. The author mentions that some entries include a “sidebar”. What this is and how to find it are unclear. Even a search within the publication using the search function did not find an example.
Volume 2 concludes with a Primary Documents section, Bibliography and Index. The Preface explains the Primary Documents section as “[…] 11 primary documents with introductions that give examples of how Romans viewed individuals and ideas […]” (p. xix). The documents are sub-divided into the same ten major subject areas. There is no information given, however, for what has been included. The Bibliography has a six-page listing of only books and two pages of Web sites. No journal articles are included. The Index is 49 pages long.
Navigation within the publication is via hyperlinked entries in the Table of Contents. Within each entry are arrows on the left and right sides of the page to access the pages for that entry. To get back to the Table of Contents requires clicking on the Document Details button at the top left of each page or by clicking on the contents button on the toolbar, located on the left-hand side of each page. This toolbar also includes zoom in; zoom out; resources, which is the book title and a jpeg of the book cover; extract, providing a plain text version of the content for copying/pasting; printable; and share via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email. The pagination of the electronic version also includes the print version page number.
The author suggests that the main audience for this book is students in high school and college. While this publication can serve as background reading to determine relevant dates, names, events, etc., the lack of information documentation and the small number of further reading references call into question its usefulness as an authoritative reference source. There are also no credentials of the author included anywhere in the publication, which are necessary to determine his expertise in the subject matter. His degree and current position were discovered via an Internet search.
