Collection of respected sources which provide country-by-country data and analysis. Some offer broad overviews of conditions and issues, while others focus on narrower issues -- human rights, business, press freedom, energy, etc.

The IESBS (2002) is the largest reference work on the social and behavioral sciences ever published -- over 4,000 signed articles in 26 printed volumes.

Covers scholarship and fields that have emerged and matured since the publication of the original international edition. Highlights the expanding influence of economics in social science research and features new articles and biographies contributed by scholars from around the world on a wide array of global topics in the social sciences. Acquisition was made possible by the McCrum Palmer Book Fund.

Five-colume set (2010) was prepared with the assistance of the American Political Science Association. It contains about 1,500 alphabetically-arranged, signed entries (including one contributed by Washington and Lee Professor Mark Rush) on "political theories, concepts, research frameworks, and political practices from across the world."

2010 volume contains 28 commissioned scholarly essays, presenting an "authoritative overview of the theoretical, methodological, and substantive elements of comparative political science. [ preview ]

Eight-volume set (2008) offers over 2,000 signed and alphabetically-arranged entries, providing coverage of social, economic, cultural and political topics, spanning the period from about 1750 to current times.

Edited by Mircea Eliade, this 2005 fifteen-volume set is the most important encyclopedic work on religion.

2011 volume "examines the main issues in the field and explores the key debates" of current Islamic studies. You may preview the table of contents.

This six-volume set (2010) updates, but does not replace, the original Cambridge History of Islam (1970). The new set "offers a comprehensive history of Islamic civilization, tracing its development from its beginnings in seventh-century Arabia to its wide and varied presence in the globalised world of today, and focusing on the cultural, social and religious diversity of the peoples of the Muslim world."

Generally considered the most respected English-language reference resource on all aspects of Islam, presenting the "state of our knowledge of the Islamic World from religion and history to politics and culture." The third edition began publication in 2007.

2011 collection of 22 original essays providing an interdisciplinary overview of modern political Islam.

2012 volume contains 400 alphabetically-arranged entries written by an international team of specialists, focusing "on the origins and evolution of Islamic political ideas and related subjects..." You may preview the contents.