Dictionary of Theories [Hardcover]

Jennifer Bothamley (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Gale Group (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1873477058
• ISBN-13: 978-1873477052
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,555,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entries written by thinkers in the subject area, October 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dictionary of Theories (Hardcover)

I was pleasantly surprised at the precision and substantiality of the definitions. Each one references the name of the source and the text from which it was taken. All entries vetted by a board of respected thinkers in the subject area from places like Oxford, U. Edinburgh, London School of Econ & Poli Sci, King's College London, etc. I trust its entries, which I have found worthy on the few subjects I know about.

They also have a softcover version out, ISBN 1-57859-045-0.

Nice reference for the modern thinker to have around!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great leaf-through volume, July 30, 2003

By 

Karen Sampson Hudson "Karen Sampson Hudson" (Reno, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dictionary of Theories (Paperback)

Jennifer Bothamley has compiled more than 5,000 theories from all disciplines, from times ancient to modern, in this fascinating volume. It's a great book to leaf through; the concise, clear definitions will pique your interest. Some of the theories have been discredited, although all have had influence.
Do you need to see technical diagrams or equations? These are included. The book is cross-referenced to make browsing easier.
It's a marvelous addition to anyone's library.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deserving of a paperback edition, December 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dictionary of Theories (Hardcover)

This is indeed an admirably broad survey of literally thousands of theories from a wide range of disciplines and traditions. My training and expertise is in the Arts and Humanities, and I was surprised to find such reliability amongst categories spanning from the social sciences to postmodern literary criticism and cultural theory to more traditional philosophical concerns.

To address two issues from the previous review: Firstly, I suspect that the lack of attention to the major world religions is a result of this being a dictionary of THEORIES, not beliefs. While there is certainly a component of faith involved in speculation we generally consider more scientific, it seems sensible for such a work to leave out religious doctrine and ideas more mystic and ethereal than systematic and empirically rigorous. Secondly, although I can't speak to the broad appeal or cosmic significance of meterology, it could hardly be more obvious to someone outside the number-crunching lab that feminism is certainly not a "minor sub-field". In fact, I can think of few theoretical orientations with more enormously wide-ranging consequences, both historically and in the present moment, and more vital and relevant for inclusion in any collection of theories.