Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Weiss, Peter pāˈtər vīs [key], 1916–82, German-Swedish dramatist, novelist, film director, and painter. Weiss's early novels Abschied von den Eltern (1961; tr. Leavetaking, 1962) and Fluchtpunkt...

(Encyclopedia) Thouless, David James, 1934–2019, British physicist, b. Bearsden, Scotland, Ph.D. Cornell, 1958. He was a professor at the Univ. of Birmingham, England (1965–78), Yale (1979–80), and the Univ. o...

(Encyclopedia) Tibetan language, member of the Tibeto-Burman subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages (see Sino-Tibetan languages). It is spoken by 5 million people in the Tibet autonomous region and the Qi...

(Encyclopedia) Berlin, Conference of, 1884–85, international meeting aimed at settling the problems connected with European colonies in Africa. At the invitation of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, represe...

(Encyclopedia) Schnittke, Alfred, 1924–98, Russian composer. He studied music in Vienna (1946–48) and at the Moscow Conservatory (1953–58), where he later (1962–72) taught instrumentation. Thereafter, he ear...

(Encyclopedia) pluralism, in philosophy, theory that considers the universe explicable in terms of many principles or composed of many ultimate substances. It describes no particular system and may be embodied in su...

(Encyclopedia) Rank, Otto ôtˈō rängk [key], 1884–1937, Austrian psychoanalyst; one of Sigmund Freud's first and most valued pupils. He early employed Freudian techniques to clarify the underlying significance ...

(Encyclopedia) Hitler, Adolf äˈdôlf hĭtˈlər [key], 1889–1945, founder and leader of National Socialism (Nazism), and German dictator, b. Braunau in Upper Austria. By July, 1944, the German military si...

(Encyclopedia) North German Confederation, 1867–71, alliance of 22 German states N of the Main River. Dominated by Prussia, it replaced the German Confederation and included the states that had supported Prussia i...

(Encyclopedia) motif mōtēfˈ [key], in literature, term that denotes the recurrent presence of certain character types, objects, settings, or situations in diverse genres and periods of folklore and literature. Ex...