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Publisher: Yorkin Publications/Thomson Gale, Waterford, CT and Detroit, MI, 2007, $325.
ISBN: Also available as an e-book (978 0 7876 9394 7). 3 vols, ISBN 978 0 7876 7585 1
Locating biographical information on women is no easy task. Women throughout history have, as often as not, been invisible - being referred to, not by name, but by a descriptive noun such as wife, mistress, mother, daughter, or sister. If women were named, frequently they could have more than one - and this without taking marriage into account. The idea for this dictionary grew while the editorial team were compiling Women in World History ([1] Commire, 1999-2002) when they discovered how few women appeared in other biographical dictionaries. The intention, therefore, behind this dictionary was to have "a single source for researching women of any time period and any field of endeavor".
Twenty-five thousand women from around the world and from all walks of life are profiled in this three-volume work. Where possible, the entries give name variations, dates and places of birth and death, names of parents and children, important relatives and the accomplishments which have led to inclusion. References are also given to other major sources, including autobiographies and biographies, for users seeking more detail on an individual. To overcome the problems associated with names, extensive cross-referencing is used to name variations...