LibGuides: Humanities: Specialized Encyclopedias

Specialized Encyclopedias

Every discipline and many fields have specialized encyclopedias. Unlike Wikipedia, these encyclopedias are written, reviewed, and edited by academic experts. Consulting an encyclopedia in the early stages of your research can help you define your key terms, situate your topic in its wider scholarly context, find related fields of inquiry, and even locate seminal works of research that may be contained in the bibliographies at the end of each entry. Below is a small selection of what is available in the humanities (including literature, philosophy, religion, and other fields). For more consult the library's other research guides.

Specialized Encyclopedias: History

For a more comprehensive list see the History Research guides.

A Dictionary of World History by Edmund Wright (Editor); Jonathan Law (Editor)
ISBN: 0192807005
Publication Date: 2007-03-09
Thousands of short up-to-date entries on key figures in world history, countries, religious and political movements, international organizations, battles and places.
The Oxford Companion to British History by John Cannon (Editor)
ISBN: 0198605145
Publication Date: 2003-04-03
Covering more than 2,000 years of British history, this one-volume historical dictionary includes social, political, military, cultural, economic, scientific, and biographical events. All entries are signed by the contributor and run from short 50-word descriptions to longer 1,000-to 1,500-word essays (publisher).
Oxford Companion to Canadian History
ISBN: 0195424387
1,700 entries describing significant events, issues, institutions, places, and people that have shaped Canada from earliest times to the present.
The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science by John L. Heilbron (Editor)
ISBN: 0195112296
Publication Date: 2003-03-27
Focusing on the period from the Renaissance to the early twenty-first century, articles cover all disciplines, historical periods, concepts, methodologies, and philosophies. Coverage is international. One hundred biographies of key figures chosen for their contributions to science are also included.

Specialized Encyclopedias: Philosophy and Religion

For a more comprehensive listing of encyclopedias in these disciplines see the Philosophy Research Guide and the Religious Studies Research Guide.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
ISBN: 0415073103
Based on the 1998 print edition (pictured), the REP online offers updated signed entries written by scholars on all aspects of philosophy. It also includes useful subject guides to philosophical themes (aesthetics, epistemology, logic, &c.), periods (ancient, medieval, &c.), region (Africa, Latin America, &c.), and world religions.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Peer-reviewed, open access, encyclopedia of philosophy that prides itself on offering researchers entries that reflect the most current research in the field.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions by John Bowker
ISBN: 019861053X
Publication Date: 2005-06-02
8,200 entries written by specialists on sacred sites, customs, religious practices, beliefs, traditions, and texts of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and other religions.
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science by Philip Clayton (Editor); Zachary Simpson
ISBN: 0199543658
Publication Date: 2008-07-15
This handbook includes sections devoted to the major scientific disciplines and the major world religions. At its heart are controversial essays that take opposing positions on topics such as creationism and the supernatural.

Specialized Encyclopedias: Literature

Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
ISBN: 0199208271
Over 1,200 entries defining critical literary terms as they apply to novels, poetry, drama, rhetoric, and literary history.

For a more comprehensive list see the Literature Research Guide.

Oxford Companion to English Literature
ISBN: 0198614535
The Oxford Companion to English Literature has long been established as the leading reference resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers of English literature. It provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of English literature ― from writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote, to critics, literary theory, and allusions (publisher).
A Dictionary of Writers and Their Works by Michael Cox (Editor)
ISBN: 0198662491
Publication Date: 2001-07-05
A guide to British, American, and Commonwealth authors and their works from the fifteenth-century to the present. Offers some coverage of non-fiction such as biographies, memoirs, and science.

Comprehensive Encyclopedias and Collections

Encyclopedia Britannica Online
ISBN: 1593398379
A comprehensive and credible general knowledge encyclopedia. In addition to 72,000 articles on topics in every discipline, the Encyclopedia Britannica Online also provides links to 130,000 websites that have been selected and reviewed by Britannica's editorial board of experts.
Oxford Reference Online
Oxford Reference Online brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's largest publishers into a single cross-searchable resource. The core collection contains over one hundred dictionary, language, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. Titles include the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, and the Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science (to name a few).

Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary Online
The Oxford English Dictionary (known simply as the OED) is the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language in existence. Here you will find definitions, quotations, as well as a full history of each word.

Cambridge Histories (Selected)

The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences by Mary Jo Nye (Editor)
ISBN: 0521571995
Publication Date: 2002-10-28
This volume is a narrative and interpretive history of the physical and mathematical sciences from the early nineteenth century to the close of the twentieth century. Drawing upon the most recent methods and results in historical studies of science, the authors of over thirty chapters employ strategies from intellectual history, social history, and cultural studies to provide unusually wide-ranging and comprehensive insights into developments in the public culture, disciplinary organization, and cognitive content of the physical and mathematical sciences.

Select any one of these sets to be taken to the Cambridge site where all the History can be browsed.

The Cambridge History of Christianity
ISBN: 0521812399
This nine-volume set provides access to hundreds of authoritative essays on all aspects of Christianity throughout its two-thousand year history. Extremely useful for acquiring the basic context needed to write papers at almost any level.
The Cambridge Ancient History
This massive nineteen-volume set, though dated, is a standard work in the field and can still be useful for the background information it provides.
The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature
ISBN: 0521868769
Covers Canadian literature in English and French from its beginnings to the present.