Reviews

Both of these two entries in Greenwood's "Milestones in African American History" series offer a solid foothold for high school or college students beginning research on slave resistance or abolition. They cover people, places, philosophies, and popular culture and share many common features: readable, signed A-to-Z entries with short source lists; general bibliographies; chronologies; black-and-white illustrations; and subject indexes. With 400 cross-referenced entries, Antislavery provides a global look at efforts to combat slavery. Editors Hinks (The Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance) and McKivigan (U.S. history, Indiana Univ.-Purdue; editor, Frederick Douglass Papers) occasionally let a preachy tone creep in-e.g., "One can only hope-" for the entry on Libreville, capital of Gabon. Rodriguez's (history, Eureka Coll.; editor, Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery) U.S.-focused Slave Resistance features some 300 cross-referenced entries, all detailed and insightful. It also includes 100 pages of primary documents ranging from transcribed congressional debates to slave narratives. Treatment is balanced; e.g., an entry on Roots author Alexander Haley mentions controversies (authenticity, plagiarism) surrounding his work but also highlights his achievements. Bottom Line Both titles go into much greater depth than does Sage's recent Encyclopedia of African American Society (2005). Although their writing is less polished, these two books also offer more detail than does Oxford's Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (2005. 2d ed.) or its Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass (2006). Recommended for high school, college, and large public libraries.-Mary Rumsey, Univ. of Minnesota Law Lib., Minneapolis Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.