The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History
by By Brinkley, Douglas and ROSENBAUM, ROBERT A
Category: History , Reference

Its 350,000 words and 1,500 entries include articles on every presidential election through 2000, on every presidential administration to George W. Bush's, on the U.S. Supreme Court under 11 justices, and on landmark Court cases from Marbury v. Madison (1803) to Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). There are articles on two dozen perennial public issues, including Affirmative Action, Campaign Financing, Church-State Relations, Consumer Protection, Environmentalism, Poverty, Welfare, and Women in the Labor Force. Seminal books from The Federalist to The Feminine Mystique are described.Foreign events that have impacted American history - the French, Russian, and Mexican revolutions, the Spanish Civil War, and the Holocaust - are treated. There are articles on U.S. relations with Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, South America, and the Middle East. Other articles cover U.S. recognition of the Latin American republics, the Soviet Union, and Israel, and describe the postwar U.S. occupations of Germany and Japan.Some recent subjects make their encyclopedia debuts - Anthrax Attack, Bush Doctrine, Bush v. Gore, Corporate Responsibility Act, Enron Bankruptcy, Globalization, New Economy, School Vouchers, Terrorism War, U.S.A. Patriot Act, World Trade Center Attacks, Y2K (Year 2000) Anxiety.Although biographies as a class are omitted, the volume contains twelve articles on famous pairs, including Hamilton and Jefferson, Jackson and Clay, Jefferson and Madison, Johnson and McNamara, Lincoln and Douglas, Stanton and Anthony, Truman and Acheson, and Wilson and Lodge. In addition, there are half a dozen articles on the careers of men who somehow epitomized their ages, including John Brown, Charles Lindbergh, J. P. Morgan, and George C. Wallace.