The German-speaking countries of Europe : a selective bibliography /

The modest first edition of this bibliography (1985, 121 p.) has been greatly expanded and updated. The current edition consists of chapters for each of Europe's German-speaking countries (though Liechtenstein's is very brief and Luxembourg is omitted). The unannotated entries in each chapter are arranged alphabetically by main entry into very broad categories such as bibliographies, description and travel, history, politics and government, etc. Selections "emphasize the 1980s" and focus on the "the interaction between the German-speaking countries and the United States." Entries are about equally divided between titles in English and in German; an author/title index is appended. Because of the extremely general nature of the subject categories and the lack of subheadings, finding a work on a subject such as "the Greens" would involve reading many pages; the section on politics and government in the Federal Republic, for example, goes on for 34 pages. Of interest chiefly for its timeliness, this bibliography is nonetheless not so useful as those that have annotations and allow more precise subject access. The paperbound volume is reasonably priced but would need rebinding to withstand library use, particularly in reference collections. -J. H. Spohrer, University of California, Berkeley