Abstract

An outline of the scope and history of encyclopaedias is essentially a guide to the story of the development of scholarship, for encyclopaedias stand out as landmarks throughout the centuries, recording much of what was known at the time of publication. the early stage of encyclopaedias originated a summaries of scholarship in forms comprehensible to their readers, so that compiled their works single-handedly. The impact of Christianity brought a new phase in Western encyclopaedia making. As religion is emphasized in the encyclopaedias of those time, it pervades the whole of their contents. It was made for Christian education. The general trend in treatment in the Middle ages was arranged by subject. Most of the encyclopaedias issued before the introduction of printing into Europe having been arranged in a methodical or classical form, the alphabetically arranged encyclopaedia has a history of less than 1000 years. By influence of printing and Renaissance, a turning point came with encyclopaedia making. There were just as increasingly preferred to put practical topics first. Until those time, thought in terms of arranging their entries in alphabetical order has already familiarized. By generalization of public education in 19th-century, there were increasingly the number of purchasers so that prevailed commercial publication. It was those time that was settled the features of contemporary such as multivolume compendium of all available knowledge, complete with maps and a very detailed index, as well as numerous adjuncts such as bibliographies, illustrations, lists of abbreviations and foreign expressions, gazetteers, and so on.

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