Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Bunyan, John bŭnˈyən [key], 1628–88, English author, b. Elstow, Bedfordshire. After a brief period at the village free school, Bunyan learned the tinker's trade, which he followed intermittently ...

(Encyclopedia) Gordimer, Nadine nādēnˈ gôrˈdəmər [key], 1923–2014, South African writer, b. Springs. A member of the African National Congress, Gordimer fought apartheid in her political life and in her wri...

(Encyclopedia) frontier, in U.S. history, the border area of settlement of Europeans and their descendants; it was vital in the conquest of the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The importance of the westwa...

(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) fur trade, in American history. Trade in animal skins and pelts had gone on since antiquity, but reached its height in the wilderness of North America from the 17th to the early 19th cent. The demand ...

(Encyclopedia) Oates, Joyce Carol, 1938–, American author, b. Lockport, N.Y., B.A. Syracuse Univ., 1960, M.A. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1961. She taught English at the Univ. of Detroit and the Univ. of Windsor, Ontario,...

(Encyclopedia) Acheson, Dean Gooderham ăchˈĭsən [key], 1893–1971, U.S. secretary of state (1949–53), b. Middletown, Conn., grad. Yale, Harvard Law School. He was (1919–21) private secretary to Louis Brande...

(Encyclopedia) Mazzini, Giuseppe jo͞ozĕpˈpā mät-sēˈnē [key], 1805–72, Italian patriot and revolutionist, an outstanding figure of the Risorgimento. His youth was spent in literary and philosophical studies...

(Encyclopedia) Almodóvar, Pedro pāˈᵺrō älmōᵺōˈbär [key], 1951–, Spanish film director. Almodóvar began making short films using an inexpensive Super 8 camera in the early 1970s, graduated to longer 1...

(Encyclopedia) Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), sometimes called Campbellites, a Protestant religious body founded early in the 19th cent. in the United States. Its primary thesis is that the Bible alone shou...