Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Vergil, Polydore

(Encyclopedia)Vergil or Virgil, Polydore, 1470?-1555?, historian and humanist, b. Urbino, Italy. He studied at Bologna and Padua, served as secretary to the duke of Urbino, was chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI, and...

Rostow, Walt Whitman

(Encyclopedia)Rostow, Walt Whitman, 1916–2003, U.S. economist and government official, brother of Eugene Rostow, b. New York City. A Yale Ph.D. (1940) and Rhodes scholar, he served (1942–45) with the covert Off...

Ssu-ma Kuang

(Encyclopedia)Ssu-ma Kuang so͞o-mä kwäng [key], 1018–86, Chinese statesman and historian of the Northern Sung dynasty. He edited the monumental Tzu-chih t'ung-chien [the comprehensive mirror for aid in governm...

Sigurðsson, Jón

(Encyclopedia)Sigurðsson, Jón yōn sĭˈkhürᵺsōn [key], 1811–79, Icelandic statesman and historian. A student in Copenhagen from 1833, he developed an interest in Icelandic literature and history, on which ...

Stein, Lorenz von

(Encyclopedia)Stein, Lorenz von lōˈrĕnts fən shtīn [key], 1815–90, German economist and sociologist. He studied jurisprudence at the Univ. of Kiel and at Paris and taught (1846–51) at the Univ. of Kiel, bu...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich gāˈôrkh vĭlˈhĕlm frēˈdrĭkh hāˈgəl [key], 1770–1831, German philosopher, b. Stuttgart; son of a government clerk. Hegel has influenced many subsequent p...

saxifrage

(Encyclopedia)saxifrage săkˈsĭfrĭj [key], common name for several members of the Saxifragaceae, a family of widely varying herbs, shrubs, and small trees of cosmopolitan distribution. They are found especially ...

Sierra Madre, mountain system, Mexico

(Encyclopedia)Sierra Madre dĕl so͝orˈ [key] is a tumbled, broken mass of uptilted mountains that touch the Pacific coast but form into no clearly defined range. It spreads over S Mexico between the volcanic belt...

Browse by Subject