The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography - Hardcover

(no Author Stated)

9780618252107: The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 061825210X ISBN 13: 9780618252107

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003

Lists more than eighteen thousand people from ancient times to the present and from all areas of the world, providing within each entry the subject's full name, birth and death dates, nationality, occupation, education, and achievements.

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About the Author:

The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and of other reference titles published by Houghton Mifflin Company are trained lexicographers with a varied array of interests and expertise. Most of the editors hold graduate degrees and have studied at least one foreign language. Several have degrees in linguistics or in the history of the English language. Others have degrees in science or sometimes other disciplines. All the editors familiarize themselves with the vocabulary in specific subject areas, collect materials on new developments and usage, and work in association with consultants to ensure that the content of our publications is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible.

From Booklist:

This new biographical dictionary has a complicated genealogy. It is derived from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, the American edition of which was published by Cambridge University Press until 1993 (Cambridge published its own Cambridge Biographical Dictionary in 1998). The sixth edition of Chambers was published in the U.S. in 1997. The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography is based on the seventh, 2002 edition of Chambers but "updated, expanded, and Americanized."

The dictionary's more than 18,000 entries include year of birth and death, a brief descriptive phrase ("English statesman," "French cyclist"), and a paragraph of biography. Some entries, such as those for George Eliot and William James, cite a source or two. Three hundred individuals, among them Menachem Begin, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, and Hannibal, are treated in special-feature boxes. These featured entries are generally longer than other entries, have more extensive lists of sources, and often include a quote. All entries are cross-referenced. For the most part, information seems to be current through 2001.

Both the Chambers Biographical Dictionary and The Cambridge Biographical Dictionary have a British slant, and Houghton Mifflin still has plenty of entries for Commonwealth cricketers. But readers will also find Lance Armstrong, Mia Hamm, Mark McGwire, and Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Also here are Russell Crowe, Frank Gehry, Rudy Giuliani, Mohammad Khatami, Kim Jong Il, Don King, Pervaiz Musharraff, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vladimir Putin. None of these individuals appear in The Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin's closest competitor. Among the handful of other one-volume biographical encyclopedias, Merriam-Webster's Biographical Encyclopedia (rev. ed., 1995) is the largest (30,000 entries) and has many Americans who are not found elsewhere, but it does not cover living persons. Encyclopedia of Biography (St. Martin's, 1996) has illustrations but offers just 10,000 entries. The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography is now the most current one-volume biographical dictionary and is recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries. RBB
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