The 21st-Century Voter: Who Votes, How They Vote, and Why They Vote. Edited by Guido H. Stempell III and Thomas K. Hargrove. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016. 2 vols. Acid free $189 (ISBN 978-1-61069-227-4). E-book available (978-1-61069-228-1), call for pricing.

The title of this two volume set suggests that the focus is on voters: their demographics, voting preferences, and motivations. However, the editors state “the aim . . . is to assemble many of the key concepts and issues that drive 21st century politics,” (xiii) a far more sweeping goal and one more difficult to attain. While not stated explicitly here or elsewhere, the entries that are related to voting focus on United States presidential and congressional elections. Taken as a whole, this work is a collection of loosely related entries, many of which don’t state a connection to voters or voting.

The introductory essays do address the who, how, and why of voters in the United States, albeit briefly. A fourth essay on media and campaigns suggests an unstated fourth theme. A quick review first twenty-seven entries (As and Bs) brings to light the lack of connection between content and title. Examples include entries on abortion, affirmative action, antiestablishment rhetoric, balanced budgets, Robert H. Bork, and the Bush doctrine. Of these six entries, only one references voting. The theme of the media, sometimes as it relates to politics, emerges quite clearly. Examples of such entries include Roger Ailes, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Peter Arnett, and David Brinkley. Entries that directly address voters are of roughly equal length as entries that do not. For instance, the article on the gender gap is slightly shorter than the article on the Kerner Commission.

There are other peculiarities in this work. While entries include suggestions for further reading, those lists do not consistently contain references to material quoted in the entry itself. The organization of the set is interesting. For instance, entries on national campaigns are integrated alphabetically (e.g., “Campaign 2000,” “Campaign 2002”). Information on presidential candidates is nested in election entries that are also alphabetized (e.g., “Candidates,” “Presidential Election 2012”). There is even an entry titled why we vote on Tuesday. The “primary documents” section, spanning 110 pages, contains the 2012 Republican and Democratic Party platforms. This content is easily accessible online.

The 21st-Century Voter is stretched too thin to be a go-to resource for patrons researching voters or even voting in the United States. The African American Electorate: A Statistical History, authored by Hanes Walton, Jr., Sherman C. Puckett, and Donald R. Deskins, Jr. (CQ Press 2012) sets the gold standard for documenting and exploring voting history in the United States. One can only hope that similar works will follow. In the meantime, the US Census Bureau (www.census.gov) remains the surest bet for voter data. The Pew Research Center (www.pewresearch.org) and Gallup (www.gallup.com) can help to fill out the picture with polling data.—Anne C. Deutsch, Instruction Program Coordinator, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, New York