Customer Reviews

American Folklore: An Encyclopedia (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)

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Publishers are developing a growing number of encyclopedias on folklore these days. This volume is one of the best ones currently in print. It covers a wider variety of topics and groups of people. The insightful articles develop a strong base for understanding folklore, and researchers can use this book as a reference source for finding more publications on a range of topics. The book balances its reading level so that it is accessible to general readers, but its content is grounded in solid scholarship. It's also a fine source for finding quick references to various topics of interest in the study of folk belief, legends, traditional music, folk dance, customs, and other folklore genres.

Anyone who's ever been involved in the production of a specialized encyclopedia knows the possible pitfalls and realizes it's nearly impossible to avoid all of them. This volume suffers from relying on a few contributors who have not developed a strong grounding in the areas they cover. These are uncritically written and occasionally misleading. Certain other entries are inflated with trendy jargon that makes them unreadable and uninstructive. Other articles, however, by creaful scholars of long experience, are of very high quality. They are accessible to college freshmen (or so one hopes) while providing a concise overview for the serious researcher.

The book is abundantly illustrated with photos, though some of them--like the full-page pictures of Elvis, Davy Crockett, and a fig-leaf wearing strongman--obviously have been selected primarly for their sales appeal. Others--like the full-page photo of an Anglo-American lady who sang a version of "Barbara Allen" and the full-page Currier & Ives of "The Angel of Prayer"--contribute very little.

While it's impossible to include everything and everybody, there are some striking omissions here. "John Avery Lomax" gets his due, but there's no article on Alan (though he does appear several times in the index). "Jazz" and "Blues" are entered, but "ragtime" is hardly mentioned. On the opposite side of the ledger, "Con artist" is treated, though the topic's special connection with "folklore" is not very obvious. There's no general article on "folk hero," but the big, familiar topics, like "Tall tales," "Folksong," "Ballad," "Legend," "Cowboys," "Folklore and American Literature," and so on, are covered at length, and biographies of numerous folklorists and collectors are included.

An important innovation is the inclusion of long articles on minority-group folklore in the United States. Beside "African Americans" and "Mexican Americans," and other long-influential groups, there are articles on "Korean Americans" and "Basque Americans," and such non-ethnic minorities as "Gay Men" and "Lesbians."

Overall, despite its inevitable lapses, this encyclopedia sets a new high standard for American folklore reference books. One hopes the next edition is even better.