Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) divination, practice of foreseeing future events or obtaining secret knowledge through communication with divine sources and through omens, oracles, signs, and portents. It is based on the belief in r...

(Encyclopedia) water skiing, sport of riding on skis along the water's surface while being towed by a motorboat. It probably originated on the French Riviera in the early 1920s, and was known in the United States by...

(Encyclopedia) Tokarczuk, Olga, 1962–, Polish writer. Widely considered the foremost Polish novelist of her generation, she also is politically active and has been a frequent critic of Poland's right-wing governme...

(Encyclopedia) Huxley, Sir Andrew Fielding, 1917–2012, British physiologist, educated at University College, London; grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, half-brother of Sir Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley. He finishe...

(Encyclopedia) Sallust (Caius Sallustius Crispus) sălˈəst [key], 86 b.c.–c.34 b.c., Roman historian. He was tribune of the people (52 b.c.) and praetor (46). He was ejected (50) from the senate ostensibly for a...

(Encyclopedia) calypso, a form of folk song developed on the island of Trinidad and also popular in other Caribbean countries. Thought to have begun with 19th-century black slaves, calypso songs developed and contin...

(Encyclopedia) Kertész, André kĕrtĕshˈ [key], 1894–1985, American photographer, b. Budapest. His black-and-white modernist photographs often capture small, lyrical, and emotionally resonant moments while also...

(Encyclopedia) crater, circular, bowl-shaped depression on the earth's surface. (For a discussion of lunar craters, see moon.) Simple craters are bowl-shaped with a raised outer rim. Complex craters have a raised ce...

(Encyclopedia) magic realism, primarily Latin American literary movement that arose in the 1960s. The term has been attributed to the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, who first applied it to Latin-American fiction in ...

(Encyclopedia) Mary, in the Bible, mother of Jesus. Christian tradition reckons her the principal saint, naming her variously the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady, and Mother of God (Gr., theotokos). Her name is the He...