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Sun Yat-sen

(Encyclopedia)Sun Yat-sen so͞on yät-sĕn [key], Mandarin Sun Wen, 1866–1925, Chinese revolutionary. He was born near Guangzhou into a farm-owning family. He attended (1879–82) an Anglican boys school in Honol...

communism

(Encyclopedia)communism, fundamentally, a system of social organization in which property (especially real property and the means of production) is held in common. Thus, the ejido system of the indigenous people of...

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

(Encyclopedia)Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich lĕnˈĭn, Rus. vlədyēˈmĭr ĭlyēchˈ lyĕˈnĭn [key], 1870–1924, Russian revolutionary, the founder of Bolshevism and the major force behind the Revolution of Oct., 1917...

Utopia

(Encyclopedia)Utopia yo͞otōˈpēə [key] [Gr.,=no place], title of a book by Sir Thomas More, published in Latin in 1516. The work pictures an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole...

Morris

(Encyclopedia)Morris, family of prominent American landowners and statesmen. Richard Morris, d. 1672, left England after serving in Oliver Cromwell's army, became a merchant in Barbados, and emigrated to New York C...

Houellebecq, Michel

(Encyclopedia)Houellebecq, Michel mēshĕlˈ wĕlˈbĕk [key], b. 1958– or 1956–, French author, perhaps France's best-known contemporary novelist, b. Réunion as Michel Thomas. A literary pessimist and master ...

Hunt, Leigh

(Encyclopedia)Hunt, Leigh (James Henry Leigh Hunt) lē [key], 1784–1859, English poet, critic, and journalist. He was a friend of the eminent literary men of his time, and his home was the gathering place for suc...

Czartoryski

(Encyclopedia)Czartoryski chärtôrĭsˈkē [key], Polish princely family. Although of ancient lineage, it rose to prominence only in the 17th cent., and in the 18th cent. during the reign of the Saxon kings of Pol...

Poison Affair

(Encyclopedia)Poison Affair, in French history, scandal implicating a number of prominent persons at the court of King Louis XIV. It began with the trial of Marie Madeleine d'Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers (c.163...

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