ABSTRACT
It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the invitation to write this new Introduction to the Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. The original three-volume, hardback edition of The Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film appeared in 2006, and met with considerable acclaim. For example, the Encyclopedia was awarded the prestigious Dartmouth Medal by the American Library Association in 2006 for the ‘outstanding work of reference of the year’. Unfortunately, the single-volume Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film is unable to accommodate all that appeared in the original hardback edition of the Encyclopedia and, as a consequence, many entries have, necessarily, had to be excluded from the present edition. Readers interested in these entries are referred to the 2006 edition, which is widely available. The entries appearing in the Concise edition have, after some deliberation, been limited to those concerning films, filmmakers, and national traditions. Two new entries on India and China have also been added to the national traditions covered in the original work.
