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Sea Islands

(Encyclopedia)Sea Islands, chain of more than 100 low islands off the Atlantic coast of S.C., Ga., and N Fla., extending from the Santee River to the St. Johns River. The ocean side of the islands is generally sand...

pragmatism

(Encyclopedia)pragmatism prăgˈmətĭzəm [key], method of philosophy in which the truth of a proposition is measured by its correspondence with experimental results and by its practical outcome. Thought is consid...

Mailer, Norman

(Encyclopedia)Mailer, Norman (Norman Kingsley Mailer), 1923–2007, American writer, b. Long Branch, N.J., grad. Harvard, 1943. He grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., served in the army during World War II, and at the age o...

classicism

(Encyclopedia)classicism, a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic qual...

dark matter

(Encyclopedia)dark matter, material that is believed to make up nearly 27% of the mass of the universe but is not readily visible because it neither emits nor reflects electromagnetic radiation, such as light or ra...

city

(Encyclopedia)city, densely populated urban center, larger than a village or a town, whose inhabitants are engaged primarily in commerce and industry. In the United States a city is legally an incorporated municipa...

Erie Canal

(Encyclopedia)Erie Canal, artificial waterway, c.360 mi (580 km) long; connecting New York City with the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. Locks were built to overcome the 571-ft (174-m) difference between the leve...

Great Depression

(Encyclopedia)Great Depression, in U.S. history, the severe economic crisis generally considered to have been precipitated by the U.S. stock-market crash of 1929. Although it shared the basic characteristics of oth...

Tudor

(Encyclopedia)Tudor, royal family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Its founder was Owen Tudor, of a Welsh family of great antiquity, who was a squire at the court of Henry V and who married that king's widow, ...

Wilde, Oscar

(Encyclopedia)Wilde, Oscar (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde), 1854–1900, Irish author and wit, b. Dublin. He is most famous for his sophisticated, brilliantly witty plays, which were the first since the come...