Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Twain, Mark, pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature. His novel The Ad...

(Encyclopedia) Peninsular War, 1808–14, fought by France against Great Britain, Portugal, Spanish regulars, and Spanish guerrillas in the Iberian Peninsula. The Peninsular War immeasurably raised Britain's mi...

(Encyclopedia) hymn, song of praise, devotion, or thanksgiving, especially of a religious character (see also cantata). Early Christian hymnody consisted mainly of the Psalms and the great canticles Nunc dimittis, M...

(Encyclopedia) science fiction, literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Although science fiction is a form of fantastic literature, many of the events recou...

(Encyclopedia) economics, study of how human beings allocate scarce resources to produce various commodities and how those commodities are distributed for consumption among the people in society (see distribution). ...

(Encyclopedia) Nobel Prizes

(Encyclopedia) landscape painting, portrayal of scenes found in the natural world; these scenes are treated as the subject of the work of art rather than as an element in another kind of painting. In China landsca...

(Encyclopedia) Brontë brŏnˈtē [key], family of English novelists, including Charlotte Brontë, 1816–55, English novelist, Emily Jane Brontë, 1818–48, English novelist and poet, and Anne Brontë, 1820–49, ...

(Encyclopedia) anti-Semitism ănˌtē-sĕmˈĭtĭzˌəm, ănˌtī– [key], form of prejudice against Jews, ranging from antipathy to violent hatred. Before the 19th cent., anti-Semitism was largely religious and wa...

(Encyclopedia) Prime Ministers of Great Britain 1 The modern party system did not evolve until the end of the 18th cent. ...