It should be stated from the onset that the subtitle’s description of Mark Grossman’s Constitutional Amendments as an “encyclopedia” is a bit of a misnomer. In both form and substance, this work can be more accurately described as a “sourcebook,” and it is for these same reasons that it stands as a unique and much richer reference work.

Rather than an alphabetically organized collection of summaries of the various names, events, and other keyword topics associated with the US constitutional amendments as presented in the widely held work Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 3rd ed. (ABC-CLIO, 2010), Grossman offers a chronological and detailed look at each of the twenty-seven amendments spread over eighteen chapters (the Bill of Rights is covered in a single chapter) in two volumes. He states bluntly in the foreword that his goal is to help promote the Constitution’s status as a document “to be celebrated,” so if you’re looking for a reference work which includes a well-rounded critical analysis of the constitution in the vein of Charles A. Beard or Howard Zinn, this is not that work. As previously mentioned, this work’s strength resides not in its commentary but rather in its bringing together disparate original source documents in one place. Naturally each chapter contains an introduction, but as is typical of most chapters, chapter four on the Thirteenth Amendment collects a transcription of the text of the congressional resolution banning slavery as well as a scanned image of the original along with excerpts of debate from the Congressional Globe, reprints of contemporaneous news accounts and subsequent secondary sources, succinct biographies of four non-obvious but nonetheless key individuals (think James Mitchell Ashley and James Falconer Wilson), and a concluding historical snapshot which attempts to contextualize the country’s social and political terrain at that moment in time.

The work is further enhanced by three appendices that focus on the process of amending the constitution, the ratification process, and finally an elaboration of six proposed constitutional amendments that came close to ratification but ultimately failed for a variety of reasons. An index is provided for those who prefer to utilize the work in a more traditionally encyclopedic fashion. This work is recommended for public libraries and undergraduate university library collections.