Vol. 1 : A-C. - 1419 p.

Written at a level accessible to nonspecialists, including high-school students, college students in introductory courses, and the general public, this encyclopedia's purpose is to assist users in acquiring knowledge and understanding of chemistry. The 509 alphabetically arranged, signed articles were written by subject specialists and range from concise definitions to multiple-page overviews. Broad areas covered include analytical chemistry applications, biochemistry, biographies, elements, energy, environmental chemistry, medicine, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, reactions, states of matter, and structure. Examples of specific article titles are Alchemy; Artificial sweeteners; Boron; Clones; Franklin, Rosalind; Isomerism; Mole concept; Nanochemistry; Rubber; Spectroscopy; and zwitterions. In addition to explaining scientific principles, this set relates chemistry to everyday life. For example, Silly Putty (a silicone-based material) is a "liquid solid," the color of hydrangeas is determined by soil acidity, and endorphins may allow marathoners' bodies to endure long races. An 18-page glossary and 67-page subject index are included in each volume. Glossary definitions also appear in the margins next to the text. Although there are some cross-references in the articles, the index is more thorough. About 300 black-and-white illustrations and diagrams clarify the concepts under discussion. There are no color illustrations; color would have been useful to elucidate concepts such as bonding and molecular structure. Bibliographic references and related Internet resources are listed at the end of many articles. A "For Your Reference" section at the beginning of each volume provides selected metric conversions, an alphabetic table of the elements; common abbreviations, symbols and acronyms, and a periodic table of the elements. The similar four-volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Chemistry (1997), also edited by Lagowski, is aimed at a more academic audience and provides additional coverage of some topics. Although Chemistry: Foundations and Applications could be improved with the inclusion of some color illustrations, the very impressive scholarly contributors make this set worthy of consideration, particularly for high-school, large public, and undergraduate libraries. Nancy Cannon Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Twentieth-century and twenty-first-century elementary particle physics is full of quarks, leptons, antimatter, and dark energy. How is a reader supposed to understand physics when much of what he or she may, or may not, remember from high-school physics is no longer current? This alphabetically arranged guide is intended for a broad audience, including advanced high-school and college students as well as general readers. An international team of physicists contributed 153 entries, each with a bibliography of recommended books, journals, and Web sites. See also references appear at the end of each article. Also included are a reader's guide presenting a topical arrangement of entries, a time line, a glossary, and a list of common abbreviations and acronyms. Case studies of experiments such as the measurement of the muon, profiles of important laboratories such as Fermilab, and biographies of physicists such as Paul Dirac are among the entries, which are illustrated with tables, photograph, and schematics. Building Blocks of Matter is a supplement to the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics (1996). As such, it will help students understand the physics of elementary particles, that is, particles that cannot be broken down. Because of its focus, it is more specialized than a physics dictionary. Recommended for science reference collections in academic and public libraries, especially those that own the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics.

In 1980, editor and publisher Moshe Y. Sachs set our ro create the Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, a new kind of reference work that would view every nation of the world as if through a "world mirror" and not from the perspective of any one country or group of countries. In 1981, a companion volume, the Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States, was introduced. It was selected as an "Outstanding Reference Source" by the Reference Sources Committee of the American Library Association, Reference and Adult Services Division. The Gale Group now offers a revised and updated sixth edition of the Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. The fitness of the United States of America as a subject for encyclopedic study is plain. No discussion of world politics, economics, culture, technology, or military affairs would be complete without an intensive examination of the American achievement. What is not so obvious is why the editors chose to present this work as an encyclopedia of the states rather than of the United States. In so doing, they emphasize the fact that the United States is a federal union of separate states with divergent histories, traditions, resources, laws, and economic interests. Every state, large or small, is treated in an individual chapter, within a framework of 50 standard subject headings; generally, the more populous the state, the longer the article. The District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico each have their own chapters, and two additional articles describe in summary the other Caribbean and Pacific dependencies. The concluding chapter is an overview of the nation as a whole. Supplementing this textual material are tables of conversions and abbreviations, a glossary, and more than 50 black-and-white maps prepared especially for this encyclopedia. Publication of this encyclopedia was a collective effort that enlisted the talents of scholars, government agencies, editor-writers, artists, cartographers, typesetters, proofreaders, and many others...

The subjects of this book are the transformation of national ideas, the causes of ethnic cleansing, and the conditions for national reconciliation. One theme is the contestation of territory, and contested places are known by different names to different people at different times. Another theme is the difference between history and memory, a difference revealed when care is taken with names. The body of this book will name cities between Warsaw and Moscow according to the usage of the people in question at the relevant moment. This minimizes anachronism, recalls the importance of language to nationalism, and emphasizes that the disposition of cities is never final. The gazetteer provides toponyms in eight languages in use as of this writing. The names of countries also require some attention. In this work, attributes of the medieval principality of Kyivan Rus’ are denoted by the term “Rusian.” The culture of East Slavs within the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is called “Ruthenian.” The adjective “Russian” is reserved for the Russian empire, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and the Russian Federation. “Ukrainian” is a geographical term in the medieval and early modern periods, and a political term in modern contexts. The use of “Belarus” signals an orientation toward local traditions; “Belorussia” suggests a belief in an integral connection with Russia. “Lithuanian” and “Polish” refer to the appropriate polities and cultures in the period in question. The historical lands of “Galicia” and “Volhynia” will be named by these Latinate English terms throughout. This book draws on archival materials; document collections; parliamentary records; ministerial memoranda; local, national, and national-minority newspapers of various countries and periods; diaries, memoirs, and correspondence; scholarly publications; other printed and unprinted sources; and interviews with civil servants, parliamentary deputies, ministers, and heads of state. Archives are cited by four-letter abbreviations, and document collections by short titles: a key is found at the back of the book. Books and articles are cited in full at first, and then by author surname and short title. Other sources are cited in full. Authors’ names are spelled as they appear in the cited work, even when this gives rise to inconsistencies of transliteration. Transliteration is the unavoidable practice of rendering words spelled in one alphabet legible in another. The Polish, Lithuanian, and Czech languages, like English, French, and German, use various orthographies within Roman script. Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian use various orthographies within Cyrillic script. Like translation, transliteration abounds in intractable problems: so critical readers will know that all solutions are imperfect. With certain exceptions for well-known surnames, Cyrillic script is here rendered by a simplified version of the Library of Congress system. Translations, except from Lithuanian, are my own.