The word “power” most often refers to social, versus physical, power. But the latter use is not that rare. Indeed, a search of large academic library OPACs using the subject term “power resources” yields hundreds of titles. The Encyclopedia of Power would be much more aptly named the Encyclopedia of Political Power or the Encyclopedia of Social Power. The single volume contains 381 signed articles ranging from 400 to 4,000 words on theories, phenomena, individuals, and events related to political and social power. Many of the 157 contributors are from abroad, primarily Europe. Editor Keith Dowding, a professor of political science at Australian National University, appreciates the uniqueness of power as a topic of study. He provides a short but edifying description of several current interdisciplinary themes in power research; this provides useful context. He also defines nearly all of the categories of the encyclopedia's Reader's Guide, a finding tool that groups articles by topic. A list of articles that should illustrate the volume's breadth contains “Banks,” “Civil War,” “Discourse,” “E-Governance,” “Gunboat Diplomacy,” “Hegemony,” “League of Nations,” “Loyalty,” “The Media,” “Queer Theories of Power,” “Power and Testosterone,” and “Veiled Women.” The book also has an alphabetical entry list and exhaustive index. Dowding clarifies that the primary sources of material are the fields of political science, international relations, and sociology. Many articles are intended to touch on several disciplines at once. Those areas of study are not specifically delineated in the multidisciplinary articles, but good students should be able to identify the connections. Some longer articles have topic headings. Each ends with cross references and further readings. The content also includes a handful of graphics.

Dowding invited his contributors to offer their own perspectives on many of the work's topics, along with providing the latest factual information. Thus, this work is a compilation of current theories of power applied to hundreds of phenomena and concepts, as well as biographies of people who have been influential in the field. It has no real peers in the literature, and is much more extensive in its approach to its subject than subject encyclopedias in the social and political sciences. The Encyclopedia of Political Science (Sage, 2011), the Encyclopedia of Psychology (ALA, 2000), and the Encyclopedia of Sociology (Gale, 2000) each include articles on power focusing on discipline-specific theories. Based on Dowding's stated source of material, and a review of this encyclopedia's entries, it seems that this book will be most useful for researchers of political science, international relations, and sociology. Its organization, content, and reasonable price should make it appealing to librarians. However, the ambiguity of this book's title raises questions regarding the speed and frequency with which it will be used when its record is retrieved in an OPAC. Hopefully a harried researcher will either take the time to look at its catalog record and see that it deals with social/political power, or do a keyword or subject search for “power social sciences.” This access issue makes this book a tricky acquisition. The Encyclopedia of Power is recommended for academic libraries with staff committed to aggressively promoting its use.