"This two-volume encyclopedia edited by English (educational leadership, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; ed., Handbook of Educational Leadership) is aimed primarily at school administrators and those in training to lead in the academic arena. Its 600 A-to-Z entries, each half a page to 12 pages long, are by 200-plus professors, graduate students, practitioners, and association officials and range from biographical sketches of leaders and thinkers who have influenced American education, such as Howard Gardner and Abraham Maslow, to explanations of the item response theory and Holocaust education. Other topics include educational organizations (e.g., Parent Teacher Association), child development theories, and terms like "cultural capital" and "differentiated staffing." While matters such as asbestos and school violence are tackled, many of the entries focus on fiscally effective leadership (e.g., "Finance, of public schools"), leadership characteristics (e.g., "Charisma, of leaders"), and the history and theory of leadership. Bottom Line The writing is clear and concise, with identification of emerging trends, helpful cross references, and lists of additional sources. Two longer entries of particular interest concern Supreme Court cases in education law and the challenges of recruiting and retaining teachers. The only missing ingredient is dynamic graphics; there are no photographs and only minimal use of tables and graphs. A number of other works explore the topic of academic leadership in greater depth, e.g., The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator′s Guide to Exemplary Leadership (2003), but they lack the breadth of this encyclopedia. Recommended for public and academic libraries."