Kennedy, a longtime British music critic and author, has updated and expanded his 1985 Dictionary of Music with more than 1,000 new entries plus revisions (in many cases major) to about four-fifths of the original 11,000 entries. Entries define and identify all facets of music from titles of individual works to performers, orchestras, musical forms, instruments, and composers. Identifications can be as short as one line (moll) or as long as four pages (Mozart). Much mention is made of debuts in various places and of first performances; almost no note is made of personal lives apart from music.
Hailed as "handy and readable" (Nature) and "well worth browsing" (New Scientist), this best-selling dictionary contains 9,200 alphabetically organized entries on all aspects of chemistry, physics, biology (including human biology), earth sciences, and astronomy. In addition to a wealth of reliable, up-to-date entries, users will find useful short biographies of leading scientists, full-page illustrated features on subjects such as the Solar System and Genetically Modified Organisms, and chronologies of specific scientific subjects including plastics, electronics, and cell biology.
This volume contains about 600 entries on various aspects of the history of science, including individuals (e.g., Galileo), disciplines (e.g., astronomy), and broad topics (e.g., religion). Written by an outstanding group of over 200 international scholars, the entries focus on secondary sources and are geared to the nonspecialist. Each entry provides a short bibliography followed by a short essay on the topic, discussing the various merits of the titles listed.
Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Hip-Hop (American Popular Music)
The eight-volume American Popular Music set includes more than 1,400 entries for musical artists, styles, events, and terms relating to music genres. Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Hip-Hop is the volume examined for this review (other volumes cover classical music, country music, folk music, and jazz, and the final volume is a comprehensive index).
The Encyclopedia of the Life Course and Human Development examines three key life stages from a sociological perspective, exploring how enduring experiences, as well as transitions and events such as childcare, education, stress, marriage, career, addiction, friendship, parenthood, disease, spirituality, and retirement influence the individual's life course. The nearly 400 entries in this three-volume set are organized by life stage: Childhood and Adolescence; Adulthood; and Later Life.
