For an organisation purporting to be a registered charity, some say Oxford University Press is rather too profit-motivated.
The desire to cut overheads and maximise returns was at the heart of the decision in the mid-1990s to close down its encyclopaedia division and "outsource" production to Market House Books, an Aylesbury-based packaging firm. The standard of the books declined almost immediately.
A prime example is the entry for 'intifada' in the current edition of The Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia: "Intifada (Arabic, "uprising") A sustained campaign of violence which began late in 1987, by Palestinian rsidents (sic) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, after the Six Day War in 1967. Although a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis was signed in 1993, a number of terrorist attacks by Arabs has perpetuated the violence and disrupted the peace process."
Er... odd perhaps that the mention of terrorism is not counterbalanced by a nod at the extreme retaliation of the Israeli armed forces or the plight of the Palestinian refugees. For this information, Bookworm is indebted to long-time scourge of OUP Andrew Malcolm (see Eyes passim), whose website www.akme.btinternet.co.uk contains many more examples of "Oxford - the reference books you can trust".
The 'outsourced' Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia was first published in 1998, with the Intifada entry as quoted. It was "reprinted with revisions" in 2000, with the same entry, even still including the same 'rsidents' typo. Both editions carry on their covers the slogan "Oxford, the reference books you can trust".
The shocking OPE entry may be contrasted with Cambridge's (paperback) equivalent (3rd edition, 1999), as follows: "Intifada - A Palestinian uprising which erupted in 1987 in the Gaza Strip and quickly spread to the West Bank. The uprising reflected frustrations with two decades of Israeli military occupation, the expansion of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories, and the failure of the PLO and the Arab states to change the status quo. The armed response from Israeli forces, combined with Palestinian anti-collaboration violence, claimed nearly 1000 Palestinian lives. However, the Intifada is credited with breaking the political deadlock. The term is now widely used to mean any mass uprising against oppressive rule."
In fact, even the correct translation of the Arabic word 'intifada' seems to be contentious, with Oxbridge's "uprising" set against Collins' "resurgence", "throwing off" and Encarta's "shaking off". An educated Arab has described it to me as "a difficult word" whose modern Palestinian coinage is new and whose predecessor in classical Arabic meant something more like "awakening", as if from a bad dream. Can I have one, please. - A. M.
Go to the next item in the Malcolm v. Oxford saga.
For more on the encyclopaedia wars, go to the TLS letters, 19/2/99 and the ensuing correspondence, or to Encarta about OUP's dodgy deal with Microsoft. The Intifada Yadayada is also reminiscent of Oxford's delicious "definitions for hire" scandal back in the 1980s, Bad Marx.