The Making of Law

This is the first historical dictionary of the Spanish Empire (although Scribner's multivolume Encyclopedia of Latin American History is scheduled for publication in late 1992). Unlike many reference works on Spanish colonial history, the editors provide coverage from 1402, when Castile expanded into the Canary Islands, to the surrender of the Spanish Sahara in 1975. The dictionary offers brief descriptive essays for more than 1,200 topics ranging from colonies, individuals, and institutions to revolutions, technologies, and military battles. . . .[It] will make a useful addition to academic and many large public libraries. Booklist The armada of books greeting the quincentenary of Columbus's transatlantic voyage of discovery will almost certainly raise many questions about the globe-girdling empire that Spain acquired in Columbus's wake, questions that Olsen's dictionary is ideally suited to answer. Its brief articles focus on the people, institutions, and colonies of the Spanish empire, from Castile's expansion to the Canary Islands in 1402 to the surrender of Spanish Sahara in 1975. Articles on political events, treaties, and wars in Europe that affected the empire are integrated alphabetically with articles on the colonies themselves, noted individuals, events, industries, institutions, cities, commodities, native peoples, and political offices of the imperial possessions in the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific. Articles on former colonies cover the period from conquest or acquisition to the time of independence or transfer to another nation. Index, bibliography, and end-of-article references add value to the articles. Given the five-century span of coverage, articles on majortopics tend to be a rapid-fire series of factual statements summarizing major events in a single sentence. Abundant internal cross-references allow readers to supply needed context to comprehend such articles. This fine dictionary will continue to answer questions long after this year's Columbus hoopla subsides. -Wilson Library Bulletin