Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) organized crime, criminal activities organized and coordinated on a national scale, often with international connections. The American tradition of daring desperadoes like Jesse James and John Dilling...

(Encyclopedia) cotton, most important of the vegetable fibers, and the plant from which the fiber is harvested. Today the leading cotton states are Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Louisi...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Plate tectonics: Map of the world showing major plates and plate boundaries CE5 Plate tectonics: Schematic model of the oceanic crust, showing the three types of plate boundaries plate tect...

(Encyclopedia) European Monetary System, arrangement by which most nations of the European Union (EU) linked their currencies to prevent large fluctuations relative to one another. It was organized in 1979 to stabil...

(Encyclopedia)  CE6 Olympic games, premier athletic meeting of ancient Greece, and, in modern times, series of international sports contests. The modern revival of the Olympic games is due in a large measure to ...

(Encyclopedia) Industrial Revolution, term usually applied to the social and economic changes that mark the transition from a stable agricultural and commercial society to a modern industrial society relying on comp...

(Encyclopedia) wind, flow of air relative to the earth's surface. A wind is named according to the point of the compass from which it blows, e.g., a wind blowing from the north is a north wind. The diurnal, or dai...

(Encyclopedia) free trade, in modern usage, trade or commerce carried on without such restrictions as import duties, export bounties, domestic production subsidies, trade quotas, or import licenses. The basic argume...

(Encyclopedia) nationalism, political or social philosophy in which the welfare of the nation-state as an entity is considered paramount. Nationalism is basically a collective state of mind or consciousness in which...

(Encyclopedia) Mars, in astronomy, 4th planet from the sun, with an orbit next in order beyond that of the earth. Mars has two natural satellites, discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. The innermost of these, Phobos...