All About Berkshire

Berkshire's Winning Record
Berkshire In Libraries
What Makes Berkshire Different
Company Beginnings
Berkshire Publishing in the Berkshire Hills

For over a decade, readers curious about their world have turned to award-winning, global library reference titles created by Berkshire Publishing Group, the small publisher located in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts.

The awards and accolades scattered throughout the site will tell you that we’re expert at creating truly interdisciplinary academic resources on popular, cutting-edge subjects such as human emotions, women and sports, and leadership. Our publications offer extensive coverage of global perspectives, world history, sports, community, religion and society, popular culture, and environmental issues. In them, you see the results of dynamic collaborations by our extraordinary worldwide network of scholars, thinkers, editors, and authors.

With new books on the twenty-first century, China, sustainability, and all aspects of the religious experience, Berkshire is thinking about tomorrow. When terrorists brought down the twin towers on September 11, the Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism was being printed. The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment came out a few months later. Next came the definitive (over 700 contributors from 65 countries) Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, which had from its inception, three years earlier, included broad coverage of southwest and central Asia—Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian republics. Before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, we published the first Encyclopedia of Leadership. And Berkshire goes deeper. We don’t just ask Who, What, When, and Where? We ask the more important and difficult questions: Why? How? And what can we do to make the world a better place?

Berkshire's Winning Record

Berkshire Publishing has won numerous annual publishing awards from academic, school, and public libraries:

American Libraries "Outstanding Reference Sources"

Booklist "Outstanding Reference Sources"

Choice "Outstanding Academic Books"

Library Journal "Best Reference Sources"

New York Public Library “Outstanding Reference"

The Observer (London) "Top 20 Green Books"

William Hill Ltd. (United Kingdom bookmaker) "Book of the Month"

We’re a team of less than a dozen employees, yet we’ve won more library reference awards than companies ten or even a hundred times our size, and we've created works, a librarian recently told us, that "redefined what reference is all about." In fact, in 2003 Berkshire won two out of thirteen coveted places on the national ALA/RUSA Outstanding Reference Sources list, with its six-volume, 2.2-million-word Encyclopedia of Modern Asia and four-volume Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. This was 16% of the list by title and 25% by number of volumes.

The ten-volume Encyclopedia of World Cultures is “a landmark in anthropological and ethnological studies.” –Reference Desk

“This unique encyclopedia [Encyclopedia of Human Emotions] … tries to be all things to all readers and succeeds brilliantly.” –Library Journal

The bestselling original Encyclopedia of World Sport “is certain to be your most popular reference acquisition of the year.” –Library Journal

“The newest sporting bible” –The Times [London]

Our first major Berkshire titles were similarly well-received, winning awards from Booklist, Library Journal, and Choice, and the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction was a 2005 YBP computer science bestseller.

“A masterful title that weaves together social, scientific, anthropological, and geographical influences on world history, this set will be the benchmark against which future history encyclopedias are compared.” –Booklist

Berkshire in Libraries

Berkshire knows that librarians and professors are looking for better value in the reference they choose, works that can be used for many different courses, in different departments. Berkshire publications have always been acclaimed as both authoritative and accessible. As a result, they satisfy the needs of students in high schools as well as universities and are widely used by professionals, too, in business and nonprofit organizations, for convenient reference outside their areas of expertise.

We want to know more about your world, too. We love hearing from librarians, so don’t hesitate to call or e-mail with your questions, suggestions for new publications, and feedback on our published sets.

Browse our award-winning products by title, author, or subject area, and place an order online by clicking here, or by calling +1 413 528 0206 or e-mailing cservice@berkshirepublishing.com. Institutions may also order through all major library distributors and suppliers, in the United States and elsewhere. Click here for a full list of international representatives.

What Makes Berkshire Different

1. Berkshire goes deeper.

We don’t just ask Who, What, When, and Where? We ask the more important and difficult questions: Why? How? And what can we do to make the world a better place?

Encyclopedia of Homelessness: “Levinson’s remarkable work deserves an award for tackling this complex social problem in such a very thorough and well-organized way. Highly recommended.” – Choice

Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History: “Sorting the sum of human endeavors and presenting students with a coherent plan of study is no easy task, but a winning combination of distinguished historians and a seasoned editorial staff has proven more than equal to this massive undertaking.” –John Lawrence, “Lawrence Looks at Books”

2. We are scholars and authors ourselves.

"Incredibly, [Christensen and Levinson’s Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World] is the first encyclopedia to focus on community as concept and experience, so stands alone in its field as the one title any library must buy to cover this topic…. Essential. All readerships.” –Choice

Some of our editorial staff are also published authors, and a number run websites and independent publishing projects.

3. Berkshire is small and independent.

There's been a great deal of consolidation in the publishing industry but we're bucking the trend--with an independent imprint that intends to stay that way! We share the belief of many of our readers that independent voices are needed more than ever.

“The Encyclopedia of Leadership is a model of a modern reference book … [it] belongs in the personal collection of every person seriously interested in leadership, whether as student, scholar, or practitioner.” –Compass

4. Berkshire is global.

“A monumental undertaking, [the International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports, edited by Christensen et al.] covers women’s sports worldwide and throughout history … A scholarly resource for public libraries and school at all levels, middle school through college.” –Library Journal

“[The International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports features] engaging illustrations and photos, as well as numerous sidebars, tables and charts … [and] a sense of scope and comprehensiveness not afforded by other sports references.” –Against the Grain

5. Berkshire is interdisciplinary. We are about people and ideas--and the networks they form.

We can sometimes see connections that are not obvious to people working within a single discipline.

We are a uniquely twenty-first-century publisher because our extensive human networks and personal relationships, developed as a result of working with so many thousands of contributors on collaborative projects, are an ideal fit with new communications media and social software.

Whether you are a reader or a writer, a scientist or a student, we invite you to join these networks, share your ideas and knowledge, and link to others who can help you in your own endeavors. We welcome suggestions for improvements to the works we’ve already published and are always interested in new topics, ideas, and trends that shape our world.

“Works like the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction play a valuable role in lending definition to emerging, interdisciplinary fields of study.” –Against the Grain

“[Berkshire's Patterns of Global Terrorism] offers a great service to policy makers, journalists, researchers, and the general public … [It] provides context, coherence, and thorough access.” –Reference & Research Book News

For more about the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, visit our Berkshires page.

120-122 Castle Street • Great Barrington, MA 01230-1506
Tel +1 413 528 0206 • Fax +1 413 541 0076

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