Historical Dictionary of the Great Depression, 1929–1940. By James S. Olson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Pp. viii, 355. $90.00.

Extract

In recent years James S. Olson has become the historical profession's leading producer of historical dictionaries. Beginning with his volume on the New Deal in1985, he has gone on to produce similar reference works for the 1920s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, for the ethno-history of China, Africa, and the Indians of Central and South America, and for such diverse topics as U.S. economic history, European imperialism, and the British and Spanish empires. The work under review is the latest addition to this reference shelf and like its companion volumes should be a useful tool in all types of academic libraries, from high school up. Like the others, it is geared to provide quick, concise, sound, and clearly written references to the details of a particular body of historical experience. In it one can consult some 479 short, alphabetically arranged, Olson-authored essays, ranging in length from four lines (“Black Tuesday”) to three pages (“Roosevelt, Franklin Delano”), and take from them the essential facts about and historical significance of the people, events, laws, agencies, products, and other topics deemed worthy of inclusion. In addition, cross-references are marked by asterisks within the essays; each essay is followed by at least one “suggested reading”; and appended at the end are a list of acronyms, a useful chronology, a brief but good general bibliography, and a well-constructed index.