Gorman R.F. (editor) Great Lives from History: The 20th Century, 1901-2000

Salem Press, 2008. — 5200 p.From Booklist.
This set is the eighth installment in the Great Lives series, which is a revision and expansion of the publisher’s 10-volume Dictionary of World Biography (1998–99). The scope of the set is extensive: 1,334 alphabetically arranged essays covering 1,348 individuals. Some 288 of the entries are new, and 166 have been heavily or completely updated. According to the Publisher’s Note, the set has an extra concentration of new or updated material on women and ethnic and racial minorities. The essays are organized in a straightforward manner. Each is prefaced with the subject’s occupation, nationality, dates of birth and death, and area of achievement. The main body of the essay includes sections entitled Early Life, Life’s Works, and Significance. An annotated list of additional resources follows each essay. Cross-references tie the entries to content in the companion Great Events from History: The 20th Century. A number of useful features support the text. For example, maps appear in all volumes, as do the set table of contents and list of maps and sidebars. The last volume contains a list of rulers and heads of state, a chronological list of entries, and lists of entries by category and geographical location, as well as personage and subject indexes. Like other of the publisher’s recent offerings, purchase of this set entitles a school or library to free access to Salem History, which offers the content online. Once they purchase this set, libraries that already own previously published titles in the Great Lives series quality for free online access to the earlier works. Recommended for high-school, college, and public libraries.