8:43 a.m., Jan. 27, 2010----The Encyclopedia of Modern China, of which David Pong, professor of history and past director of the East Asian Studies Program at the University of Delaware, is editor-in-chief, has received several prestigious honors this month.

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The publication was included in a short list of titles nominated for the 2010 Dartmouth Award, the most prestigious honor in reference publishing, and received recognition as an “honorable mention.”

The Dartmouth Award is bestowed annually by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, and it is relatively rare when an honorable mention is given in addition to the main award.

This year's Dartmouth Award went to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, published by the Oxford University Press, and honorable mentions were awarded to both the Encyclopedia of Modern China, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning, and the Encyclopedia of Journalism, published by Sage.

Also, the Encyclopedia of Modern China was one of 11 select titles honored by the RUSA among its outstanding reference sources for 2010.

Both the Dartmouth Award and the list of outstanding reference sources were announced Jan. 17.

Pong, who has received a 2009-10 Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and to serve as a consultant for the reform of the higher education system in Hong Kong, said the encyclopedia is a four-volume work, with about 2,300 pages and 1.3 million words, richly illustrated with many in color. There is a print and an eBook edition, and the University of Delaware Library has a set.

Pong said that major objectives in preparing the encyclopedia were “to put together a board of associate editors of distinguished scholars representing a broad spectrum of China studies on the modern period, from 1800-present, and who come from diverse origins in terms of nationalities and cultures.”

He added that an important goal was “to get the best scholars in the field to write for us, so that the best and the latest scholarship will be reflected in this very important reference work, and all authors were given full academic freedom.”

Pong said of the work, published in August 2009, “I am pleased to say that we have, by and large, succeeded. The set contains about 940 entries by more than 400 scholars from around the world. In other words, we have not relied on a few persons to write a large number of entries. Most authors were invited to write only one or two entries in their specialty. Quality has always been the ultimate criterion.”

In the introduction to the encyclopedia, Pong writes, “China's rise since the 1980s has shown contemporary and modern China in a new light. The reforms implemented after the passing of Mao Zedong have produced dramatic results. It is still too early to fully evaluate the overall impact of these reforms, but an economy with a sustained double-digit growth rate for some two decades cannot be brushed aside as an accident. Nor can China's rise be viewed narrowly as an economic phenomenon, for without the aggregate energy and ingenuity of the people, the leadership of the country, or even the structure of the political system, China would not be where it is today.”

Because “there is much to describe, analyze and understand about modern China,” Pong writes, the large number of scholars and entries were assembled, with topics that “range from the daily life of common folks to the ever-changing structure of the banking system that is part of the engine of China's recent transformation” in an effort to provide a “rich and balanced” description of “the complexity of the country's history and culture as well as to elucidate its current successes and predicaments.”

Project editor Alan Hedblad of Gale, Cengage Learning called the work “a stunning achievement for David personally,” praising Pong's approach and work and noting both resulted in “the fine scholarship evident in this set.”

In addition to the team of associate editors, who hail from five countries in four continents, a number of scholars also served as consulting editors, including Jianguo Chen, associate professor in UD's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Pong said he “wishes to thank all of them for their invaluable contributions to the encyclopedia.”

Pong has bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London and teaches courses on Asian civilization and China at UD.