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Ai Weiwei

(Encyclopedia)Ai Weiwei īˈ wāwā [key], 1957–, Chinese artist, architect, filmmaker, and political activist. He is the son of poet Ai Ch'ing, who was internally exiled (1958–76) to work camps with his family...

Fenian movement

(Encyclopedia)Fenian movement fēˈnēən [key] or Fenians, secret revolutionary society organized c.1858 in Ireland and the United States to achieve Irish independence from England by force. It was known variously...

El Niño–Southern Oscillation

(Encyclopedia)El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ĕl nēnˈyō [key], large-scale climatic fluctuation of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the overlying atmosphere. The El Niño [Span.,=the child] is the South Am...

social work

(Encyclopedia)social work, organized effort to help individuals and families to adjust themselves to the community, as well as to adapt the community to the needs of such persons and families. Social work emerge...

Rosas, Juan Manuel de

(Encyclopedia)Rosas, Juan Manuel de hwän mänwĕlˈ dā rôˈsäs [key], 1793–1877, Argentine dictator, governor of Buenos Aires prov. (1829–32, 1835–52). As a boy he served under Jacques de Liniers against ...

Ba'ath party

(Encyclopedia)Ba'ath party bäˈäth [key], Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Founded in Damascus in 1941 with an ideology of secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, it was reformed with the name Ba...

Warsaw

(Encyclopedia)Warsaw wôrˈsô [key], Pol. Warszawa, city (1993 est. pop. 1,655,700), capital of Poland and of Mazowieckie prov., central Poland, on both banks of the Vistula River. It is a political, cultural, and...

caste

(Encyclopedia)caste [Port., casta=basket], ranked groups based on heredity within rigid systems of social stratification, especially those that constitute Hindu India. Some scholars, in fact, deny that true caste s...

quantum theory

(Encyclopedia)quantum theory, modern physical theory concerned with the emission and absorption of energy by matter and with the motion of material particles; the quantum theory and the theory of relativity togethe...

land use

(Encyclopedia)land use, exploitation of land for agricultural, industrial, residential, recreational, or other purposes. Because the United States historically has a laissez-faire attitude toward land use, the land...