Over a twelve-year period a distinguished supervisory committee from the University of Oxford, with a grant from the British Academy, has coordinated the work of 10,000 specialists worldwide to recreate one of the great English reference works. The result is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography--a collection of 50,000 specially written biographies of men and women who have shaped all aspects of the British past, from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000.