Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) collective farm, an agricultural production unit including a number of farm households or villages working together under state control. The description of the collective farm has varied with time and...

(Encyclopedia) woman suffrage, the right of women to vote. Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism. On the European mainland, Finland (1...

(Encyclopedia) Presbyterianism, form of Christian church organization based on administration by a hierarchy of courts composed of clerical and lay presbyters. Holding a position between episcopacy (government by bi...

(Encyclopedia) Greek art, works of art produced in the Aegean basin, a center of artistic activity from very early times (see Aegean civilization). This article covers the art of ancient Greece from its beginnings t...

(Encyclopedia) James I, 1566–1625, king of England (1603–25) and, as James VI, of Scotland (1567–1625). James's reign witnessed the beginnings of English colonization in North America (Jamestown was founded in...

(Encyclopedia) Pan-Americanism, movement toward commercial, social, economic, military, and political cooperation among the nations of North, Central, and South America. In the early 20th cent., U.S. manipulation ...

(Encyclopedia) fire fighting, the use of strategy, personnel, and apparatus to extinguish, to confine, or to escape from fire. Ancient Rome is known to have had a fire department consisting by the 1st cent. of app...

(Encyclopedia) Arabic literature, literary works written in the Arabic language. The great body of Arabic literature includes works by Arabic speaking Turks, Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Jews, and other Af...

(Encyclopedia) Lee, Robert Edward, 1807–70, general in chief of the Confederate armies in the American Civil War, b. Jan. 19, 1807, at Stratford, Westmoreland co., Va.; son of Henry (“Light-Horse Harry”) Lee. ...

(Encyclopedia) Christianity, religion founded in Palestine by the followers of Jesus. One of the world's major religions, it predominates in Europe and the Americas, where it has been a powerful historical force and...