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French architecture

(Encyclopedia)French architecture, structures created in the area of Europe that is now France. Engineers and architects, including François Hennebique, Auguste Perret, and Tony Garnier, pioneered the use of rei...

modern architecture

(Encyclopedia)modern architecture, new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the decade after World War I. It was based on the “rational” use of modern materials, the principles of funct...

Martineau, Harriet

(Encyclopedia)Martineau, Harriet märˈtĭnō [key], 1802–76, English author. A journalist rather than a writer of literature, she was an enormously popular author. Her success is the more remarkable since she wa...

positivism

(Encyclopedia)positivism pŏˈzĭtĭvĭzəm [key], philosophical doctrine that denies any validity to speculation or metaphysics. Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that metaphysical questio...

Renoir, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Renoir, Jean zhäN rənwärˈ [key], 1894–1979, French film director and writer, b. Paris; son of Pierre Auguste Renoir. He made his first film in 1926. Gathering around him a devoted coterie of act...

Clark, William

(Encyclopedia)Clark, William, 1770–1838, American explorer, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark expedition, b. Caroline co., Va.; brother of George Rogers Clark. He was an army officer (1792–96), serving ...

clearing

(Encyclopedia)clearing, in banking, the periodic settling of bankers' claims against each other, for which local banks establish clearinghouse associations. Clearinghouses are said to have existed in Florence by a....

naturalism, in philosophy

(Encyclopedia)naturalism, in philosophy, a position that attempts to explain all phenomena and account for all values by means of strictly natural (as opposed to supernatural) categories. The particular meaning of ...

Durkheim, Émile

(Encyclopedia)Durkheim, Émile dûrkˈhīm, Fr. āmēlˈ dürkĕmˈ [key], 1858–1917, French sociologist. Along with Max Weber he is considered one of the chief founders of modern sociology. Educated in France an...

social science

(Encyclopedia)social science, term for any or all of the branches of study that deal with humans in their social relations. Often these studies are referred to in the plural as the social sciences. Although human s...

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