[crazygringo]

Well, how do you reliably trust anything?

I've never seen a handbook that led anyone "wildly astray". They're put out by major academic publishers (Oxford, Routledge, etc.) who hire (publishing) editors qualified to select qualified (academic) editors to select qualified chapter contributors. It's not like they're randos self-publishing or something.

The entire point is to be a fairly neutral, comprehensive state of whatever field or subfield the handbook covers. And they generally do a pretty good job. A place like Oxford is never going to publish a handbook that's trying to push some ideological agenda and ignoring half the field.

But if you don't trust the senior editors at major academic presses, then I don't know what to tell you.

And since you've never heard of handbooks, see my peer comment with links so you can see they exist. :)