Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Antonioni, Michelangelo

(Encyclopedia)Antonioni, Michelangelo mëkālänˈjālō äntōnyôˈnē [key], 1912–2007, Italian film director and scriptwriter, b. Ferrara, Italy. In the 1940s he made documentaries that contributed to the dev...

Lowry, Malcolm

(Encyclopedia)Lowry, Malcolm (Clarence Malcolm Lowry) louˈrē [key], 1909–57, English novelist, b. New Brighton, Wirral. Lowry is widely recognized as an important writer who effectively articulated the spiritua...

Cortázar, Julio

(Encyclopedia)Cortázar, Julio ho͞oˈlyō kōrtäˈzär [key], 1914–84, Argentine novelist, poet, essayist, and short-story writer, b. Brussels. Moving permanently to France in 1951, Cortázar gradually gained r...

Gottfried von Strassburg

(Encyclopedia)Gottfried von Strassburg gôtˈfrēt fən shträsˈbo͝orkh [key], fl. 13th cent., German poet, also called Godfrey of Strasbourg. He is thought to have been official scribe of Strasbourg, but little ...

Neutra, Richard Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Neutra, Richard Joseph noiˈtrə, no͞oˈtrə [key], 1892–1970, American architect, born and educated in Vienna. Although Neutra worked for a time with Eric Mendelsohn and later with Frank Lloyd Wri...

Office of Strategic Services

(Encyclopedia)Office of Strategic Services (OSS), U.S. agency created (1942) during World War II under the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the purpose of obtaining information about enemy nations and ...

Stone, Harlan Fiske

(Encyclopedia)Stone, Harlan Fiske, 1872–1946, American jurist, 12th chief justice of the United States (1941–46), b. Chesterfield, N.H. A graduate (1898) of Columbia Univ. law school, he was admitted (1899) to ...

Standish, Miles

(Encyclopedia)Standish, Miles or Myles, c.1584–1656, American colonist, b. England. After serving as a soldier for a number of years, Standish accompanied the Pilgrims to America on the Mayflower (1620) and was r...

Silva, José Asunción

(Encyclopedia)Silva, José Asunción hōsāˈ äso͞onsyōnˈ sĭlˈvä [key], 1865–96, Colombian poet, one of the precursors of modernismo. Silva's life was shadowed by the loss of a crucial manuscript, family d...

Green, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Green, Samuel, 1615–1702, early American printer. He established himself at Cambridge, Mass., in 1649, using a press owned by Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard. Green succeeded Stephen D...

Browse by Subject