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Sorel, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Sorel, Georges sôrĕlˈ [key], 1847–1922, French social philosopher. An engineer before he devoted himself to writing, Sorel found in the political and social life of bourgeois democracy the trium...

Diem, Ngo Dinh

(Encyclopedia)Diem, Ngo Dinh nō dĭn dyĕm [key], 1901–63, president of South Vietnam (1955–63). A member of an influential Roman Catholic family, he was a civil servant before World War II and was connected w...

Murray, Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Murray, Elizabeth, 1940–2007, American abstract artist, b. Chicago. She moved in 1967 to New York, where she became part of the post-minimalism generation of artists in the 1970s. In the late 1960s,...

macular degeneration

(Encyclopedia)macular degeneration, eye disorder causing loss of central vision. The affected area, the macula, lies at the back of the retina and is the part that produces the sharpest vision. The most serious vis...

Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner

(Encyclopedia)Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner, 1822–88, English jurist and historian, educated at Cambridge. A pioneer in the historical and comparative study of institutions, he viewed the history of laws as the m...

Huxley, Thomas Henry

(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...

Gorgas, William Crawford

(Encyclopedia)Gorgas, William Crawford, 1854–1920, American disease and sanitation expert, surgeon general of the United States, b. Mobile, Ala., grad. Bellevue Hospital Medical College, 1879. He served with the ...

muckrakers

(Encyclopedia)muckrakers, name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term d...

Steyn, Martinus Theunis

(Encyclopedia)Steyn, Martinus Theunis märtēˈnəs töˈnĭs stīn [key], 1857–1916, last president (1896–1900) of the Orange Free State (see Free State), educated in the Netherlands and in England. He was adm...

Salandra, Antonio

(Encyclopedia)Salandra, Antonio äntôˈnyō sälänˈdrä [key], 1853–1931, Italian premier (1914–16). He entered parliament as a moderate conservative (1886), held various cabinet posts from 1891 to 1910, and...