Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

little magazine

(Encyclopedia)little magazine, term used to designate certain magazines that have as their purpose the publication of art, literature, or social theory by comparatively little-known writers. The little-magazine m...

cotton

(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...

New Thought

(Encyclopedia)New Thought, popular philosophical movement with religious implications; it affirms “the creative power of constructive thinking.” A successor of New England transcendentalism, New Thought grew ou...

nonjurors

(Encyclopedia)nonjurors [Lat.,=not swearing], those English and Scottish clergymen who refused to break their oath of allegiance to James II and take the oath to William III after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. T...

Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich

(Encyclopedia)Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich lĭsĕngˈkō, Rus. trəfēmˈ dyĭnyēˈsəvĭch lĭsyĕnˈkə [key], 1898–1976, Russian agronomist. As president of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences ...

Marshall, Thurgood

(Encyclopedia)Marshall, Thurgood, 1908–93, U.S. lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967–91), b. Baltimore. He received his law degree from Howard Univ. in 1933. In 1936 he joined the legal ...

Beecher, Henry Ward

(Encyclopedia)Beecher, Henry Ward, 1813–87, American Congregational preacher, orator, and lecturer, b. Litchfield, Conn.; son of Lyman Beecher and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. He graduated from Amherst in 18...

Ricci, Matteo

(Encyclopedia)Ricci, Matteo mät-tāˈō rētˈchē [key], 1552–1610, Italian missionary to China. He entered the Society of Jesus, and in Rome he studied under Clavius. Ricci was sent to the Indies (1578), and h...

Prynne, William

(Encyclopedia)Prynne, William prĭn [key], 1600–1669, English political figure and Puritan pamphleteer. Beginning his attacks on Arminian doctrine in 1627, he soon earned the enmity of William Laud. When Prynne's...

eminent domain

(Encyclopedia)eminent domain, the right of a government to force the owner of private property sell it if it is needed for a public use. The right is based on the doctrine that a sovereign state has dominion over a...