Historical Dictionary of Armenia

Armenia, conquered by many, was until 1991 part of the Soviet Union. Its turbulent history includes the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the devastating 1988 earthquake, and its uneasy, sometimes hostile, relations with neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan. This title follows the established format for the Historical Dictionaries series. Along with a new preface, it includes the one from the 2002 edition (CH, Apr'03, 40-4363). The book explains the transliteration used and provides a list of acronyms/abbreviations, a 68-page introduction, and a chronology (ca. 1500 BCE to October 2009, with emphasis on the later years). A few photographs are a recent addition to the series. Dictionary entries, varied in length and broad in scope, include prominent individuals living outside the country. An extensive bibliography of English and non-English sources is divided by topic and features a list of Web sites....Adalian (director, Armenian National Institute) has published other works and has completed a project on the Armenian Genocide for the US National Archives. This is a useful one-step source for university and college libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *
Almost one-third longer than the first edition, published in 2002, this volume in the Scarecrow Historical Dictionaries of Europe series follows the same format as other titles in the series. The work begins with a chronology, followed by a lengthy and very informative introductory essay on the history of this ancient, landlocked country. Entries range in length from a paragraph to several pages and provide an eclectic mix of information on religion, foreign policy, the Armenian diaspora, prominent individuals, and the Armenian genocide, to name just a few topics. There is a lengthy but unannotated bibliography organized by subject and subtopic. The author is a widely published academic expert, so readers can be confident about the authoritativeness of the work. Although there is no indication of how many entries are new or revised, the preface notes that although preparation of the first edition was hampered by a lack of information, the explosion of resources available on the Internet has created “the opposite problem of too much information, even for so small a country.” The bibliography as well as many of the entries reflect this change, making this title worth considering even for libraries that own the first edition. * Booklist *