Publisher's Synopsis
This new edition of over 68,000 entries includes 8,500 which are entirely new. Out of date references and duplicates have been removed and material has been edited as new information has been collected. The policy of its predecessor to extend coverage of areas dealt with sparsely in previous editions is again extended with many new entries from the newly independent countries of Eastern Europe. The number of British and Australian organisations listed has increased considerabley, and the coverage of North America remains particularly strong.
Cross referencing between defunct organisations and their successors is a key feature, and the policies successfully adopted in previous editions have been retained. All kinds of organizations are included - international, national, governmental, individual, large or small - but strictly local organizations have been omitted.
The subject scope includes activities of all kinds, in the fields of commerce and industry, education, law, politics, public administration, religion, recreation, medicine, science and technology. The country of origin of a national organization is given in brackets, unless it is the home country of the title language or can be deduced readily from the title itself. Acronyms of parent bodies of subsidiary organizations are also added in brackets. Equivalences are used to link acronyms in different languages for the same organization. A selective bibliography guides the reader to specialist works providing more detailed information.
