Historical Dictionary of Chad. 3rd ed. Samuel Decalo. Lanham, Md. Scarecrew Press, 1997; $95 Hardcover.

Historical Dictionary of Zambia. John J. Grotpeter, Brian V.
Siegel, and James R. Pletcher. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 1998; $95 hardcover.

Historical Dictionary of Burkina Faso. Daniel M. McFarland and Lawrence
A. Rupley. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 1998. 95$, hardcover.^©

There are currently seventy-five titles in the African Historical Dictionaries series published by Scarecrow Press. Jon Woronoff, the series editor, appears recently to have undertaken a concerted effort to update some of the older titles in the series by releasing a significant number of second and third editions. Given the decade or two that has passed since the earlier editions were published, and given the many important changes that have occurred in the politics and economies of these countries since that time, Woronoff's efforts are well warranted. While these updated volumes are expensive (at $95 each hardcover, academic libraries are likely to be the primary market), they represent an important informational service to the scholarly community. The improved legibility of the new editions over the small, serif typefaces popular in academic publishing during the 1980s is in itself much appreciated. In short, these titles will be useful for Africanist scholars as well as others who may need a source they can consult to quickly place their readings about Africa into an understandable context.

These are not sexy titles. They are not written on the cutting edge of academic theory, nor are they likely to be cited with any frequency by one's colleagues in heated discussions over coffee or beer. Rather, this series provides a valuable if unassuming set of reference tools. Each title is the result of a painstaking collection of facts by one or more committed scholars who will not often be cited for their efforts. Nevertheless, each title brings important background information to anyone willing to spend a few moments to learn the meaning of an unfamiliar term while reading about the history, politics, or economy of a relatively unfamiliar place.

Individual volumes are conveniently arranged. Included with each dictionary is a variety of supplementary sources that assist the reader in becoming oriented to the country of interest. There are introductory tables of common abbreviations, acronyms, and basic demographic patterns. Notes on transliteration and spelling issues are included where required. Maps also are included to orient the reader geographically and to demonstrate the approximate boundaries of historical states, agricultural regions, bureaucratic divisions, ethnic distributions, transportation corridors and important towns. One may find a list of major ethnic groups, a chronology of major political and historic events, an extensive (although not annotated) bibliography for further reading, and several appendices as the author deems necessary.

To provide a few examples, in the case of Burkina Faso, the volume lists the ministers and other important members of the government through fifteen regime changes from 1978-1996. Samuel Decalo's bibliography of Chad is more than 150 pages long (the other two volumes reviewed here include bibliographies of close to 100 pages each). Even so, Decalo explicitly concentrates on the English language literature (which, he notes, has become available only since the 1970s), rather than on the much more numerous French language sources, and he omits much of the ephemeral literature included in the second edition. His introductory bibliographic notes provide a useful overview of the specific quality and research utility of various sources to particular fields of inquiry. He then outlines the topical sections into which the bibliography itself is divided. A final example is the Zambia title's chronology, which begins in 123,000 B.C. It runs over eighteen pages long, with entries most thoroughly covering the time period since the early nineteenth century (there are forty pages of chronology in the Burkina volume, with a similar concentration on the past 200 years). Included are entries ordering in time the various missionary and explorer activities, changes in political organization, political parties and offices, wars and other conflicts, treaty signings, economic events, and vital dates of associated individual's lives.
While these volumes are not intended as sources for looking up basic facts or statistics, the dictionaries, along with all of the supplementary sections, are designed to help readers become familiar with the relevant context in which facts must intellectually be placed. They are particularly good as companion resources to other works. For example, if one is reading about Chad and runs across a reference to SONASUT, this source provides more than a simple definition of the acronym; the entry also includes a short summary of the history, industrial capacity, and financial background of this Chadian national sugar enterprise. Military, economic, historical and political personalities, organizations, resources and events are all similarly described and placed in an understandable context to make one's reading about an unfamiliar place less tedious and more informative.

What makes this series unique is that it is directed not at users searching for particular facts, but rather at readers of other works who wish to understand unfamiliar terms within a particular historical, political, and economic context. I recommend these titles, together with the critically annotated Clio Press (Oxford, England and Santa Barbara, CA) World Bibliographical Series titles, to anyone conducting research in any discipline who is not thoroughly familiar with the specific country addressed in their research . Together, these reference tools provide the intermediate level researcher with a context for understanding current readings, as well as a wealth of suggested paths to additional readings. While the quality surely varies somewhat over the seventy-five titles published in this series over the past twenty or more years, its usefulness as a whole is firmly established, and the current effort to update older titles will be welcomed by a new generation of Africanist scholars.
Published critical response to the African Historical Dictionaries series is by no means all positive. For two alternate views, see Henige (1979) and McIlwaine (1997).