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RR 2010/155
Statesman's Yearbook Online (Archive)
Palgrave Macmillan
Basingstoke and New York, NY
2009
URL: www.statesmansyearbook.com
Last visited December 2009
Contact publisher for pricing information
Keywords Countries, Electronic media, International organizations
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121011045511
The Statesman's Year-Book (as it then was) began publication in 1864 with immaculate credentials, being the brain child of the writer Thomas Carlyle with help in its conception by William Ewart Gladstone - whose bicentenary has just taken place. Its format, as per the words of its first editor, Frederick Martin, in the preface to the 1864 edition was to "contain a full account of all the states of Europe, and the principle states of Asia, America, and Australasia, considered under their political, social, and commercial aspects". With the aim "to insure [sic] an absolute correctness of the multiplicity of facts and figures . . . for this purpose, none but official documents have been consulted in the first instance, and only where these failed, or were manifestly imperfect, recourse has been had to authoritative books . . . [etc.]". Maybe that explains why the yearbook is still a valuable source of authoritative information on global affairs throughout the world and from a librarian's point of view a useful reference resource with information easily accessible rather than having to plough...