From Free Life, Issue 27, September 1997
ISSN: 0260 5112

This work is part of a series "History & Related Disciplines Select Bibliographies", designed to meet, in the Series Editor R. C. Richardson's own words, "the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates and their teachers in universities and colleges of higher education". According to him "all volumes in the series share a number of common characteristics ... all are select bibliographies, manageable in size, and include those books and articles which in the editor's judgment are most important and useful."

This description is indeed applicable to this volume. And although I am not an authority on all the topics included, the volume does seem to fulfil its general purpose. However, it also suffers from a number of debilitating deficiencies.

Amazingly, this is a bibliography that omits vital bibliographical information! Names of publishers are not included. Occasionally a place of publication is given, but usually not. Only the date of publication is given. This sort of shoddy laziness was what I normally expected, and got, at university. But I don't expect to be asked to pay £45.00 for what is merely a list of book titles. A proper bibliography should contain full bibliographical information if it is fulfil its function. The absence of such information may render it impossible to trace the work by the inter-library loan system or other means. Of course, some famous titles, like Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism may be easy to locate, but others certainly won't be. Giving only a date for an obscure item like D. Martin's John Stuart Mill and the Land Question is not going to enormously helpful in tracking it to its source - Occasional paper in Economic and Social History No. 9, University of Hull Publications, 1991, in case you wondered.

Also contemptible is the practice of giving only the volume, but not the issue, number in journal citations. Page references are not a substitute, since not all journals paginate by volume sequence.

Richardson also states that "most items receive some descriptive comment". However, I think it would be fair to say that most of these comments are not really an adequate indication of the significance of the works included. For example, E. G. West's Education and the Industrial Revolution is included (although not his equally important Education and the State), with the comment that "Its interpretation differs markedly from [J.] Hurt". The novice reader is thus given no real indication that West's view of the extent of literacy and the significance of private education is a major challenge to orthodox educational historiography.

Whilst not entirely useless, the lack of bibliographical information severely hinders this work from being a proper bibliography. Its lack of detailed annotation also renders it useless as an overview for those not already acquainted to some degree with extant scholarly disputes.

Chris R. Tame