Because human migration's record during prehistory lies in archaeology, genetics, and linguistics, this ambitious encyclopedia's first volume presents that record through 53 topical and region-specific essays. In the following volumes, more than 500 A-Z entries complement those introductory essays. Recurrent intersecting themes dealing with labor, economics, religion, tribalism, geopolitics, ethnicity, poverty, famine, natural resources, military power, and human wanderlust necessitate the wide-ranging cross-disciplinary approaches reflected in the specialties of the robust international roster of scholarly contributors. Their signed articles build on and cite others' works, providing full citations in end-of-article bibliographies. Essential see also references point to related articles. For example, without the cross-references between Ethnic cleansing and Genocide and displacement, one could read the former article but miss the connection to the latter. The cross-references, along with other navigation tools, are critical to reaping maximum value from this rich source, which has some structural idiosyncrasies'not surprising in an interdisciplinary work. Although many article titles are suited to the alphabetical arrangement when their first word is a geographic region or country, the specificity of some topics tends to scatter related articles. For example, readers of the entry Slave trade, medieval era'the only one with slave as an entry word'may miss others that discuss slavery in various centuries and countries, to say nothing of those on slavery in relation to the arts, revolutions, racism, mortality rates, and more. There is a thorough, comprehensive index, which will help, as will the introductory 'Lexicon,' which thematically lists article titles related to chronological periods, geographical regions, and themes such as agriculture, children and families, gender and sexuality, public health, imperialism, and more. Illustrations, images, and charts are found throughout, along with 50 maps.This one-of-a-kind encyclopedia offers abundant information and is recommended for larger academic libraries.
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