Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Edward VIII, 1894–1972, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1936), known in later years as the duke of Windsor; eldest son of George V. He attended the naval colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth and Mag...

(Encyclopedia) Gingrich, Newt (Newton Leroy Gingrich) gĭngˈgrĭch [key], 1943–, U.S. congressman, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1995–98), b. Harrisburg, Pa., as Newton Leroy McPherson. A histor...

(Encyclopedia) Greenspan, Alan, 1926–, American economist, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1987–2006), b. New York City. Influenced by the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Greenspan is a strong supporter of the fr...

(Encyclopedia) Galbraith, John Kenneth gălˈbrāth [key], 1908–2006, American economist and public official, b. Ontario, Canada, grad. Univ. of Toronto (B.S., 1931), Univ. of California, Berkeley (M.S., 1933; Ph....

(Encyclopedia) logical positivism, also known as logical or scientific empiricism, modern school of philosophy that attempted to introduce the methodology and precision of mathematics and the natural sciences into t...

(Encyclopedia) Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3d Viscount, 1784–1865, British statesman. His viscountcy, to which he succeeded in 1802, was in the Irish peerage and therefore did not prevent him from entering the ...

(Encyclopedia) Satan [Heb.,=adversary], traditional opponent of God and humanity in Judaism and Christianity. In Scripture and literature the role of the opponent is given many names, such as Apolyon, Beelzebub, Sem...

(Encyclopedia) lobbying, practice and profession of influencing governmental decisions, carried out by agents who present the concerns of special interests to legislators and administrators. The term originated in t...

(Encyclopedia) Lee, Spike (Shelton Jackson Lee), 1957–, African-American filmmaker, b. Atlanta, Ga. As a student at New York Univ., he won recognition with his gradu...

(Encyclopedia) Steele, Sir Richard, 1672–1729, English essayist and playwright, b. Dublin. After studying at Charterhouse and Oxford, he entered the army in 1694 and rose to the rank of captain by 1700. His first ...