Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) city-state, in ancient Greece, Italy, and Medieval Europe, an independent political unit consisting of a city and surrounding countryside. The first city-states were in Sumer, but they reached their p...

(Encyclopedia) home economics, study of homemaking and the relation of the home to the community. Formerly limited to problems of food (nutrition and cookery), clothing, sewing, textiles, household equipment, housec...

(Encyclopedia) illiteracy, inability to meet a certain minimum criterion of reading and writing skill. Throughout most of history most people have been illiterate. In feudal society, for example, the ability to re...

(Encyclopedia) Cooperative Extension Service, in the United States, former agency of the Dept. of Agriculture, est. 1914 by the Smith-Lever Act. Designed to provide Americans with the understanding and skills essent...

(Encyclopedia) Carondelet, Francisco Luis Hector, baron de fränthēsˈkō lo͞oēsˈ ĕktôrˈ bärōnˈ dā kärōndālĕtˈ [key], c.1748–1807, governor of Louisiana (1791–97) and West Florida (1791–95), b....

(Encyclopedia) Ireland, National University of, founded 1908 to provide higher education for Irish Roman Catholics. It consists of three colleges: University College, Galway; University College, Cork; and University...

(Encyclopedia) commonwealth, form of administration signifying government by the common consent of the people. To Locke and Hobbes and other 17th-century writers the term meant an organized political community simil...

(Encyclopedia) Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: see Islamic State. ...

(Encyclopedia) Oldenburg ôlˈdənbo͝orkh [key], former state, NW Germany. It is now included in the state of Lower Saxony. The city of Oldenburg was the capital. The former state consisted of three widely separate...

(Encyclopedia) French Community, established in 1958 by the constitution of the Fifth French Republic to replace the French Union. Its members consisted of the French Republic, which included metropolitan France (co...