Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Desai, Anita

(Encyclopedia)Desai, Anita dĕsīˈ [key], 1937–, Indian fiction writer, b. Mussoorie as Anita Mazumdar, grad. Delhi Univ. (B.A., 1957). A prolific novelist, she often paints a subtly intelligent and darkly evoca...

commonwealth

(Encyclopedia)commonwealth, form of administration signifying government by the common consent of the people. To Locke and Hobbes and other 17th-century writers the term meant an organized political community simil...

Hart, Oliver Simon D'Arcy

(Encyclopedia)Hart, Oliver Simon D'Arcy, 1948–, British-American economist, b. London, England, Ph.D. Princeton, 1974. He has been a professor at the London School of Economics (1981–85), the Massachusetts Inst...

Pennacook

(Encyclopedia)Pennacook pĕnˈəko͝ok [key], group of Native North Americans of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Although of the Eastern Woodlands ...

Kremer, Michael Robert

(Encyclopedia)Kremer, Michael Robert, 1964–, American economist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Harvard, 1992. After serving as a postdoctoral fellow (1992–93) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he taught e...

Luria, Salvador Edward

(Encyclopedia)Luria, Salvador Edward, 1912–1991, American physician, b. Turin, Italy, M.D., Univ. of Turin, 1935. He conducted research and taught at the Institute of Radium in Paris (1938–40), Columbia (1940�...

Mathews, Max Vernon

(Encyclopedia)Mathews, Max Vernon, 1926–2011, American engineer known as the father of computer music, b. Columbus, Nebr., grad. California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1950), Massachusetts Institute of Technol...

Bailyn, Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Bailyn, Bernard bāˈlĭn [key], 1922–2020, U.S. historian, b. Hartford, Conn. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard (1953), he taught U.S. colonial history there, becoming a full professor in 1961...

brownstone

(Encyclopedia)brownstone, red to brown variety of sandstone. Its unusual color is caused in some instances by the presence of red iron oxide which acts as a cement, binding the sand grains together. Vast thicknesse...

Brazelton, T. Berry

(Encyclopedia)Brazelton, T. Berry (Thomas Berry Brazelton Jr.), 1918–2018, American pediatrician and author, b. Waco, Tex., grad. Princeton, 1940, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia 1943. Brazelton was ...