Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Jindal, Bobby, 1971–, American politician, b. Baton Rouge, La., as Piyush Jindal. The son of immigrants from India, he attended Brown Univ. (B.S., 1991) and thereafter was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford...

(Encyclopedia) Bernanos, Georges zhôrzh bĕrnänōsˈ [key], 1888–1948, French novelist and polemicist. Profoundly Catholic, Bernanos attacked modern materialism and advocated a moral and ethical order based on t...

(Encyclopedia) Barr, William Pelham, 1950–, U.S. lawyer and government official, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (B.A. 1971, M.A. 1973). A conservative Republican noted for his expansive view of the powers of the...

(Encyclopedia) ghost town, term for any once flourishing American community that has been abandoned, generally for economic reasons. While most of the towns have little or no population, they often contain old build...

(Encyclopedia) Fukuyama, Francis, 1952–, American political scientist, b. Chicago, grad. Cornell (B.A., 1974), Harvard (Ph.D., 1981). He has been a political scientist at the RAND Corporation (1979–80, 1983–89...

(Encyclopedia) Rumsfeld, Donald Henry, 1932–2021, American government official, b. Chicago, Princeton Univ. (B.A., 1954). After graduating college, Rumsfeld enliste...

(Encyclopedia) Schiavo case, the legal battles over the guardianship and rights of Theresa Maria Schindler Schiavo (1963–2005). Terri Schiavo was incapacitated and hospitalized in 1990, after she collapsed when he...

(Encyclopedia) mamba, name for African snakes of the genus Dendroaspis, in the cobra family. Widely distributed throughout Africa except in the deserts, mambas have extremely toxic venom. When attacking they raise t...

(Encyclopedia) Panetta, Leon Edward, 1938–, U.S. politician and government official, b. Monterey, Calif., grad. Univ. of Santa Clara, Calif. (B.A., 1960), Santa Clara Law School (1963). After serving in the army (...

(Encyclopedia) Howard, John Winston, 1939–, Australian political leader and prime minister (1996–2007), b. Sydney. A graduate of Sydney Univ., a conservative lawyer, and a member of the Liberal party, he was ele...