A New Historical Literacy?

When Facts On File decided to publish a new encyclopedia on U.S. history, it was taking a big risk. Dozens of solid resources on the subject already exist; was there room for yet another? And if so, what approach would it take? After talking to teachers and librarians, recalls Facts On Files's Owen Lancer, "it became clear that there was a real need for a comprehensive, multivolume encyclopedia that would appeal to students but also contain appropriate scholarship for a reference audience. Recent events and surveys testing student knowledge (or lack thereof) in American history seemed to have sparked a renewed emphasis on fundamental knowledge of this country's past." And so the Encyclopedia of American History was born (see review, LJ 3/1/03).

UCLA's Gary B. Nash was a natural candidate to oversee such a massive project, not only for his 40 years' experience as a teacher and writer of history (his The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness and the Origins of the American Revolution was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) but for his work as codirector of the National Standards for United States History project. That project, which became the basis for the encyclopedia's organization, "heightened my sense of the need for the kind of encyclopedia that would embrace the scholarship of the last generation," allows Nash. The important work done in social history since the 1960s (adding women's, labor, and minority histories previously marginalized or excluded from the American narrative) needed to be made available to the larger audience of high school and college students and adult readers at public libraries across the country.

In the encyclopedia, some 400 years of American history were divided into ten volumes, each representing an era in the nation's development, on the model of the National Standards for United States History. Each volume had its own specialist editor, with overall duties divided between Nash and in-house editor-in-chief Lancer. "I reviewed the list of entries for each volume, made many requests for revised lists, and then read the manuscript of each volume, with lengthy requests for revision on entries I felt were not sufficiently excellent," Nash explains. "Lancer played the main role in cudgeling the volume editors to keep on schedule."

Accomplished scholars in their own right, the ten volume editors worked closely with Nash to provide the best and most current scholarship available. Each editor chose his or her own contributors and oversaw their work. In a massive feat of editorial coordination, all of the headwords, initial entries, and final edited manuscript were reviewed by Nash, the appropriate volume editors, and the editorial and production staff at Facts On File. The entire process took just over two years. "It was a challenge to keep ten busy academics all on the same schedule," sighs Lancer, "but it all worked out in the end."

Nash admits that there was plenty for a distinguished professor of history to learn from the process of overseeing this project: "I learned the amazing depth of scholarship in nontraditional areas of American history. I was familiar with the depth in African American, Native American, labor, and women's history. But I knew less about the depth in popular culture, the arts, history of religion, and history of science and technology." Although it's difficult to gauge, Nash feels there may also be a rising appetite for history among young people—the book's target audience: "I speculate that history is more popular today [than in the past], perhaps because of good TV documentaries, the History Channel, and web-based historical materials being easily accessible." If so, the publication of this encyclopedia could not be more fortuitous.