Academic American Encyclopedia
English language encyclopaedia

Academic American Encyclopedia is a 21-volume general English-language encyclopedia published in 1980. It was first produced by Arête Publishing, the American subsidiary of the Dutch publishing company VNU (later acquired by Nielsen Media Research in 1999).
Arête Encyclopedia
The initial product, Arête Encyclopedia, was created on a schedule that was too tight, resulting in many difficulties. The first Vice President of Editorial, Larry Lustig, came from Encyclopaedia Britannica and found the pressure too great. He was replaced by Michael Reed who came from World Book Encyclopedia. Reed asked several times to have the production schedule lengthened to straighten out what had already been produced and assure reasonable time for completion. After six months, with no schedule change, Reed resigned rather than have his name associated with the work.
Grolier acquired the encyclopedia in 1982. It has also been published under the names Grolier Academic Encyclopedia, Grolier International Encyclopedia, Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia, Macmillan Family Encyclopedia, Barnes & Noble New American Encyclopedia, and Global International Encyclopedia.
An abridged version was known as the Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge.
The public source identifies “Academic American Encyclopedia” as english language encyclopaedia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Academic, American and Encyclopedia.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4671114. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1999 and 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Academic American Encyclopedia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.