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Now available from Penn Press, a landmark book project celebrates Philadelphia\u2019s role as the beating heart of the nation\u2019s story, unearthing the hidden histories, points of pride, people, places, and communities in the city and region we all love. The books emerged from the enterprise and scholarship of the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.<\/em><\/p>\n Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, Greater Philadelphia: A New History for the Twenty-First Century<\/em> brings to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions. The project\u2019s three volumes\u2014The Greater Philadelphia Region<\/a><\/em>, Greater Philadelphia and the Nation<\/a><\/em>, and Greater Philadelphia and the World<\/a><\/em>\u2014offer fresh, engaging, and inclusive retellings of our region\u2019s history from leading scholars and local voices. This is Philly as you\u2019ve never read it: complex, interconnected, and globally relevant.<\/p>\n Continue browsing below to learn more and order<\/a> each volume or the three-volume set today!<\/p>\n As early as the 1890s, the term \u201cGreater Philadelphia\u201d was already in use in newspaper ads for the Wanamaker\u2019s and Gimbel Brothers department stores. The self-proclaimed \u201cFurniture Center of Greater Philadelphia,\u201d J. B. Van Sciver Co., was actually located in Camden, New Jersey. And by the 1920s organizations and businesses ranging from sports clubs to real estate firms adopted names starting with \u201cGreater Philadelphia\u201d to associate their activities not only with the city but also its suburbs.<\/p>\n This visually stunning reference\u2014assembled by the editorial team of the online Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia\u2014adopts \u201cGreater Philadelphia\u201d to indicate a regional scope, but not one limited by a fixed geographical boundary. Instead, \u201cGreater Philadelphia\u201d refers to the interdependence between the city and its periphery across parts of three states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and northern Delaware.<\/p>\n The book is arranged thematically, with chapters containing:<\/p>\n Each chapter also features an \u201cExplore More\u201d section that provides opportunities for further reading and research, including places to visit and sites to investigate, to encourage discovery beyond the book\u2019s pages.<\/p>\n The Greater Philadelphia Region<\/i> represents a collection of stories fundamental to the Philadelphia area\u2019s history and evolution based on the belief that regions work best when residents, divided in space but linked in multiple ways through social and economic connections, possess shared knowledge about the people and the places that surround them.<\/p>\n This visually stunning reference\u2014assembled by the editorial team of the online Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia\u2014begins with Philadelphia\u2019s role during the American Revolution, as the nation\u2019s first capital until 1800, and as home to one of the North\u2019s largest free African American communities in the Antebellum period. From the Civil War to woman suffrage, from the Lenape people to the Gray Panthers, from Black Power to Occupy Philadelphia, the book chronicles the ongoing dynamics of citizenship and nationhood as they unfolded in the Philadelphia region from the eighteenth through the twenty-first centuries.<\/p>\n The book is arranged thematically, with chapters containing:<\/p>\n Each chapter also features an \u201cExplore More\u201d section that provides opportunities for further reading and research, including places to visit and sites to investigate, to encourage discovery beyond the book\u2019s pages.<\/p>\nThe Greater Philadelphia Region<\/a><\/h3>\n
A New History for the Twenty-First Century, Volume 1
\nHoward Gillette Jr., Carolyn T. Adams<\/h5>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Region-575x744.jpg\")
Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, <\/em>The Greater Philadelphia Region and its companion volumes <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the Nation and <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the World bring to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
Greater Philadelphia and the Nation<\/a><\/h3>\n
A New History for the Twenty-First Century, Volume 2
\nCharlene Mires and Jean R. Soderlund<\/h5>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/nation-575x744.jpg\")
Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the Nation and its companion volumes <\/em>The Greater Philadelphia Region and <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the World bring to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/world-575x744.jpg\")
Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the World and its companion volumes <\/em>The Greater Philadelphia Region and <\/em>Greater Philadelphia and the Nation bring to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions.<\/em><\/p>\n