Review by Booklist Review
909'.09724 Developing countries Dictionaries and encyclopedias [OCLC] 84-10129 This useful encyclopedia includes a wide range of factual information on 126 countries that are generally considered to be Third World. The author admits that definitions of Third World vary, and indicates that he has chosen countries according to ``the status of the economy and the cultural orientation rather than political ideology.'' The encyclopedia is strong in its coverage of detailed information about these countries, and, especially for the smaller nations, the wealth of detail provided is often hard to obtain in other standard sources. All country articles follow the same basic format that allows a user who has become familiar with the work to find needed data. Information about population, languages, religions, constitution and government, foreign policy, economy, agriculture, education, and health to name some of the topics covered is usually up-to-date (data from the 1980s), presented in descriptive paragraphs and tables, and interesting to read. The sections in each article on freedom and human rights are among the most interesting features of the work. Unfortunately, sources for the data are not given on the tables but can be found in an introductory section in volume 1. Each entry closes with a brief bibliography of English-language materials. Compared with the 1982 edition, much information in the articles is updated. The statistical boxes are usually expanded and restructured, and frequently, as in the boxes for balance of payments, principal economic indicators, and demographic indicators, more statistics are included. The sections on education, media and culture, freedom and human rights, and others are updated, and in cases where new governments have come into office (e.g., the Philippines), the section has been completely rewritten. Currency exchange rates, populations, chronologies, bibliographies everything that needs to be updated have been revised. Certain very minor features have been eliminated, and relatively static information climate, for example is generally the same.The only history presented for each country is a brief ``Colonial Experience'' section plus a chronology of major events since independence. Countries that were never colonized lack that section, while for countries that achieved independence in the previous century (most of Latin America), the chronologies begin after World War II. This sketchy approach does not allow the user to develop an understanding of these countries' histories. Another weakness is that pronunciation is not given for country names or other proper nouns. Even more serious, the set is marred by several errors, most of which are caused by the author's failure to update information consistently from the earlier editions. For instance, articles on the countries that border Zimbabwe Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique refer to that country as Rhodesia, its name before 1980, or as the even older Southern Rhodesia. The same problem occurs in the article on Benin, which refers to neighboring Burkina Faso as Upper Volta. The government chart in the article on Peru obviously dates from the pre-1980 military government. There are also many misspellings. The work concludes with 16 appendixes of statistical data on all the countries, with the sources given. Because of the many revisions and the new countries that were not in existence in 1982, the Encyclopedia is a worthwhile purchase even for libraries that own the earlier edition. The dynamic conditions in much of the Third World merit the publication and purchase of a new edition every five years.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
