Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) le Carré, John lə kärāˈ [key], pseud. of David John Moore Cornwell, 1931–2020, English novelist. He was a tutor at Eton College (1956–58), and subsequently worked for the British foreign serv...

(Encyclopedia) Deneuve, Catherine, 1943–, French film actress, b. Paris as Catherine Fabienne Dorléac. The daughter of actors and sister of actress Françoise Dorléac (1942–67), the cool and beautiful blonde h...

(Encyclopedia) Housman, A. E. (Alfred Edward Housman) housˈmən [key], 1859–1936, English poet and scholar, whose verse exerted a strong influence on later poets. He left Oxford without a degree because he had fa...

(Encyclopedia) idealism, the attitude that places special value on ideas and ideals as products of the mind, in comparison with the world as perceived through the senses. In art idealism is the tendency to represent...

(Encyclopedia) Baudrillard, Jean, 1929–2007, French social theorist and cultural critic. Trained as a sociologist, he taught at the Univ. of Paris X, Nanterre, from 1966 to 1987 and was a prolific writer. Influenc...

(Encyclopedia) Titanic tītănˈĭk [key], British liner that sank on the night of Apr. 14–15, 1912, less than three hours after crashing into an iceberg in the N Atlantic S of Newfoundland. More than 1,500 lives ...

(Encyclopedia) Barnes, Julian Patrick, English author, 1946–. During the 1970s and 80s he was a critic and editor for the New Statesman and New Review, a correspondent for The New Yorker, and a writer and editor f...

(Encyclopedia) Polybius pōlĭˈbēəs [key], 203? b.c.–c.120 b.c., Greek historian, b. Megalopolis. As one of the leaders of the Achaean League and a friend of Philopoemen, he was influential in Greek politics. H...

(Encyclopedia) Pirandello, Luigi lwēˈjē pērändĕlˈlō [key], 1867–1936, Italian author, b. Sicily. One of the great figures in 20th-century European theater, Pirandello was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Li...

(Encyclopedia) Douglas, William Orville, 1898–1980, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1939–75), b. Maine, Minn. He received his law degree from Columbia in 1925 and later was professo...