The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas is a four-volume reference work on intellectual history published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1973.Priestley, F. E. L. (1974). "Mapping the World of Ideas" [Review of "Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas," by P. P. Wiener]. Journal of the History of Ideas, 35(3), 527–537. https://doi.org/10.2307/2708800 Philip P. Wiener was its editor-in-chief. Associate editors included Isaiah Berlin, Salomon Bochner, and Ernest Nagel, It contains more than 300 articles written by 254 contributors, organized into seven categories. Contributors included Berlin, George Boas, Herbert Butterfield, Merle Curti, Mircea Eliade, Joan Kelly Gadol, Sidney Hook, Milton Konvitz, Leonard Kreiger, Judith Shklar, Peter N. Stearns, and René Wellek.(2003). Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Journal of the History of Ideas 64(3), 511. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2003.0036.
An updated edition (the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas), edited by Maryanne Cline Horowitz, was published in 2004.Perkins, Kelli. “New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.” Library Journal 130, no. 6 (2005): 124. EBSCOhost. The 2004 edition has 700 articles across six volumes. Scribner made the 1973 edition available for free online after the new edition was published.Black, Ken. 2005. “New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Book).” Booklist 101 (18): 1701–2. EBSCOhost.
Reception Writing in the Journal of the History of Ideas, F.E.L. Priestley described the book as "monumental in the sense that it establishes, as a surveyor's monuments do, the boundaries and the main points of reference in a large map of intellectual territory."
Library Journal praised the 2004 edition for having a broader scope than its Eurocentric and male-focused predecessor. A review in Reference & User Services Quarterly concluded, "No other reference work offers the same breadth of coverage and accessibility."Salem, Joseph A. Reference & User Services Quarterly 45, no. 1 (2005): 86–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20864459.
References
External links Online version of the 1973 edition hosted by the University of Virginia library: Volume 1: Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts TO Design Argument Volume 2: Despotism TO Law Volume 3: Law, Concept of TO Protest Movements, Volume 4: Psychological Ideas in Antiquity TO Zeitgeist