Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Maine, U.S. battleship destroyed (Feb. 15, 1898) in Havana harbor by an explosion that killed 260 men. The incident helped precipitate the Spanish-American War (Apr., 1898). Commanded by Capt. Charles...

(Encyclopedia) Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825–95, English biologist and educator, grad. Charing Cross Hospital, 1845. Huxley gave up his own biological research to become an influential scientific publicist and was th...

(Encyclopedia) Witherspoon, John, 1723–94, Scottish-American Presbyterian clergyman, political leader in the American Revolution, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Haddingtonshire (now East Lothian...

(Encyclopedia) Berdyaev, Nicholas bĕrdyīˈəf [key], 1874–1948, Russian theologian and religious philosopher, b. Kiev. After an early period as a Marxist, Berdyaev became prominent in a brilliant circle of Russi...

(Encyclopedia) Strawson, Peter Frederick, 1919–2009, British philosopher, grad. Oxford 1940. An influential advocate for so-called ordinary language philosophy, he began teaching at Oxford in 1947 and from 1968 to...

(Encyclopedia) Prud'hon, Pierre Paul pyĕr pôl prüdôNˈ [key], 1758–1823, French painter; 13th child of a Cluny stonemason. He gained recognition in 1796 with Truth Descending from the Heavens Led by Wisdom (Lo...

(Encyclopedia) Bundy, McGeorge, 1919–96, U.S. educator and government official, b. Boston. An Army intelligence officer during World War II, he was on the Harvard faculty 1949–61, becoming the youngest dean of t...

(Encyclopedia) Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

(Encyclopedia) Patchett, Ann, 1963–, American author, b. Los Angeles, B.A. Sarah Lawrence College, 1984, M.F.A Univ. of Iowa, 1987. In her twenties she was a writer at Seventeen magazine, wrote freelance essays fo...

(Encyclopedia) Malebranche, Nicolas nēkôläˈ mälbräNshˈ [key], 1638–1715, French philosopher. Malebranche's philosophy is a highly original synthesis of Cartesian and Augustinian thought. Its purpose was to ...