Publications

Garland Publishing first issued The Garland encyclopedia of world music between 1988 and 1994 as a ten-volume series of encyclopedias of world music. An updated second edition appeared between 1998 and 2002. It is widely regarded as an authoritative academic source for ethnomusicology. The volumes included in the RILM Music Encyclopedias are Africa (ed. Ruth M. Stone), The United States and Canada (ed. Ellen Koskoff), Southeast Asia (ed. Terry E. Miller and Sean Williams), South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent (ed. Alison Arnold), The Middle East (ed. Virginia Danielson), East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea (ed. Robert Provine), and Australia and the Pacific Islands (ed. Adrienne L. Kaeppler). Each volume consists of three sections that “cover the major topics of a region from broad general issues to specific music practices” (Preface): An introduction to the region, its culture, and its music as well as a survey of previous music scholarship and research; major issues and processes that link the musics of the region; and detailed accounts of individual music cultures. The entries synthesizes exhaustive fieldwork conducted since the 1960s, as well as recording, analysis, and documentation. This publication is a landmark achievement in ethnomusicology. While ethnomusicologists can appreciate The Garland for its critically designed components, non-ethnomusicologists can embrace the encyclopedia for its capacity to serve as a primer on world music.