The African-American Years: Chronologies of American History and Experience

When it was published in 1998, Scribner's The American Years: A Chronology of United States History was one of the few chronologies besides the standard Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates (10th ed., HarperCollins, 1997) to focus on the U.S. Gale has recently published a second edition of The American Years (2002) and has also expanded it into a series by adding chronologies that are more specific. The first of these deals with the history of African Americans. Whereas The American Years provides detailed year-by-year coverage, the chronological portion of The African American Years takes up just 65 pages. It extends from 1444 to 2002, with entries for events grouped by year and ranging from a sentence to a paragraph in length. The entries are heavily cross-referenced to what is actually the major part of the volume, six lengthy sections that cover the periods from "The Colonial Period and the Revolutionary War" to the Civil Rights era and beyond. These sections provide general overviews; discussions of more particular topics, such as "African Americans on the Frontier" and "The African American Literary Experience"; bibliographies; and fairly extensive selections of primary documents. Sidebars and black-and-white illustrations complement the text. The volume concludes with a general index and an index to primary source material. Gabriel Stepto The African-American Years_ Chronologies of American History and Experience Edition 1. _Chronologies of American History and Experience_ 2002

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