Based on the full authority of the Oxford English Dictionaries and their language resources, The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary skillfully blends the Concise Oxford Dictionary--Oxford's bestselling one-volume dictionary--with 10,000 encyclopedic entries covering current affairs, science and technology, history, people and places, sports, the arts, and many other topics. In addition, there are nearly 100 extra pages of information on subjects such as the countries of the world, ecology, musical notation, and meteorology.Among the many features are:* Over 200,000 definitions* 10,000 encyclopedic entries covering history, science, geography, and current events* A 32-page chronology of world events from the palaeolithic age to the Gulf War* 16 pages of specially drawn maps* Up-to-date coverage of new words and phrases, such as intifada, shiatsu and TESSA* Entries on people in the news--including Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Steffi Graf, and Margaret Atwood--and organizations such as Greenpeace* Coverage of topics of current interest, such as chaos theory and desktop publishingThis authoritative, up-to-date reference offers the convenience of a superb one-volume dictionary and a compact encyclopedia--all in one volume. For use at school, the office, or the home, The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary is an essential reference, whether you want to know the meaning of entre nous, or the identification of Naguib Mahfouz, or the location of Dakar.