Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and useful for scholars and interested readers
Review: A very good summary of Indo-European vocabulary and culture. One could argue about a few points here and there, including the high cost, but generally enjoyable and useful. I would also add that Indo-European studies are well-established.

Rating:
Summary: Bogus ?
Review: In view of one of the reviews below, I thought necessary to add a short commentary about IE studies, and thus about this book. The existence of "one" Proto-Indo-European may not have BEEN as such: rather than one unique language, Proto-IE was certainly a tight compound of very very close dialects. But the genetic relation existing between Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Romance, Indo-Iranian, etc languages, and which we call "Indo-European" is proved and is a scientific certainty, although there is many points that are not well-clarified yet.
Thus, after the publication of Mallory and Adams' book (and many others), maybe one should wait, indeed, for the publication of a SERIOUS and scholarly book proving the non-existence of a Proto-IE language or compound of dialects.
For now, I am still waiting for a relevant and convincing bibliography.

Rating:
Summary: Mallory does his usual fine job
Review: J.P. Mallory's "In Search of the Indo-Europeans" is the best one-volume survey of the origins and dispersal of the Indo-European languages.

The "Encyclopedia" is more technical, but gives a highly detailed view of the interrelationships of the IE languages and what we can deduce concerning the speakers of the original ur-sprach.

NB: in view of the review above, and out of consideration to uniformed readers, one should point out that Indo-European linguistics is a well-established field throughout the world scholarly community.