Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Stevens, Alfred Émile, 1823–1906, Belgian portrait and genre painter. He often lived in Paris and exhibited there regularly. His chief subjects, painted with admirable technique and color, were soc...

(Encyclopedia) New York Philharmonic, dating from 1842, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States. The orchestra as it now exists is the result of the merger of the Philharmonic Society of New York with the...

(Encyclopedia) vivisection vĭvˌĭsĕkˈshən [key], dissection of living animals for experimental purposes. The use of the term in recent years has been expanded to include all experimentation on living animals, r...

(Encyclopedia) Qutb, Sayyid sīˈyĭd kŭˈtəb [key], 1906–66, Egyptian Islamist whose critique of modern civilization and Islam provides the theoretical underpinnings for many contemporary Islamic militants. Edu...

(Encyclopedia) Haywood, Eliza (Fowler), 1693?–1756, English author. Separated from her husband, she supported herself and her two children by writing plays and novels. Two of her books, Utopia (1725) and The Court...

(Encyclopedia) Adams, town (2020 pop. 5,335), Berkshire co., NW Mass., in the Berkshires, on the Hoosic River; inc. 1778. Its manufactures include chemicals, textiles, and paper products. The Berkshire r...

(Encyclopedia) prehistory, period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some reco...

(Encyclopedia) Wilbur, John, 1774–1856, American Quaker leader, b. Hopkinton, R.I. He became the leader of the opposition to the evangelical principles of J. J. Gurney and Elias Hicks, and his expulsion (1843) by ...

(Encyclopedia) Guest, Edwin, 1800–1880, English archaeologist and philologist. A founder of the Philological Society (1842), Guest wrote articles on English philology and on archaeology, especially on the remains ...

(Encyclopedia) aristocracy ărˌĭstŏkˈrəsē [key] [Gr.,=rule by the best], in political science, government by a social elite. In the West the political concept of aristocracy derives from Plato's formulation in...