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This new resource provides comprehensive coverage of the many events that define the framework of African American history, including social, cultural, and political movements, and the struggles to gain freedom, equality and civil rights. Just as the history of African Americans has been dominated by struggles for freedom and equal rights, articles in Great Events from History: African American History emphasize key events in the study of slavery, the abolitionist movement, civil rights, discrimination, voting rights, and Supreme Court decisions. Other events focus on arts and entertainment, Black Nationalism, crime and punishment, economic issues, education, military history, politics & government, religion, riots and civil disturbances and women's issues.

Focusing on the making of African American society from the 1896 "separate but equal" ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson up to the contemporary period, this encyclopedia traces the transition from the Reconstruction Era to the age of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Brownruling that overturned Plessy, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ascendant influence of African American culture on the American cultural landscape.Covering African American history in all areas of U.S. history and culture from 1896 to the present, the Encyclopedia contains approximately 1,200 fully cross-referenced entries that are all signed by leading scholars and experts, making this five-volume set the most reliable and extensive treatmentto be found on African American history in the twentieth century. The set also contains 500 images and roughly 640 biographies, as well as an entry on each of the fifty states. In addition to its comprehensive coverage of African Americans, the Encyclopedia also contains entries about key figureswho affected the lives of African Americans in particular and Americans in general. Unrivalled in breadth and scope, this is the preeminent source of information on this topic and is destined to become a trusted reference source for years to come.

This Dartmouth Medal-winning 3-volume set presents 600 articles on food and its place in human culture and society, covering everything from agronomy to zucchini. Students, academics and general researchers will find entries on everything from food preparation, distribution and storage to holidays and festivals, nutrition and health, and cultures and cuisines. The Encyclopedias multidisciplinary articles -- including: Comfort Food, Ethnicity and Food, Medieval Banquets and Nutrient Composition -- range from 250 to 10, 000 words each and are supplemented by 450 photographs and illustrations, sidebars, recipes, menus, timelines and a comprehensive index.

This guide explores the origins of more than 750 well-known symbols associated with the 200 most popular holidays in the United States and worldwide. It describes each symbol's traditional, historical, and modern significance while unfolding the stow of the associated holidays.Entries are arranged alphabetically by holiday and contain the following information: type of holiday, location and place of observance, listing of associated symbols, brief introduction to holiday's origin, detailed information about each symbol, listing of related holidays, and bibliography for further reading. Holiday Symbols also features four separate indexes: Chronological, Holiday, Nationality, and Symbol. Includes special section on holiday Web sites.

Many rituals and festivals take place in public, meaning that such expressions of faith are societal as well as individual forms of human behaviour. The similarity in the general patterns of rituals and festivals across cultures and religions is striking. For example, most cultures and religions mark major life-course transitions such as birth, marriage, and death with public ritual expressions, and numerous festivals are tied to food-producing activities such as planting and harvesting. Where religions and societies vary is in the meanings associated with ritual behaviour and the specific forms those behaviours take. The Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals and Festivalsexplores this complex topic through articles covering the following general categories of information: general concepts and ideas such as communitas, inversion, purity and pollution, and pilgrimages major forms of ritual and festival such as rites of passage, devotional rites, sacrifice, calendrical rites, carnival, and fasting religious rites and festivals of major religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism and Judaism rites and festivals in cultural regions such as China, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific islands life-cycle rites, including those associated with birth, coming of age, marriage and death specific rites and festivals, such as Divali, Easter, Ramadan, snake handling and Yom Kippur. The Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivalscontains 130 entries contributed and signed by scholars from international universities and institutes, with expertise in such fields as Asian and Pacific studies, archaeology, communication studies, cultural anthropology, cultural studies, international studies, philosophy, psychological anthropology, religious studies, social anthropology, sociology and theology. An unprecedented resource, this new encyclopedia provides in-depth coverage of a vast array of worldwide practices with entries that draw on the latest research available, offering fresh insights while maintaining a connection with established scholarship. The cross-cultural coverage will help foster interfaith understanding as well as present and explain unfamiliar behaviours and rituals.