Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

ergonomics

(Encyclopedia)ergonomics, the engineering science concerned with the physical and psychological relationship between machines and the people who use them. The ergonomicist takes an empirical approach to the study o...

Anti-Federalists

(Encyclopedia)Anti-Federalists, in American history, opponents of the adoption of the federal Constitution. Leading Anti-Federalists included George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, Patrick Henry, and George Clinton. Later, ...

Dye, Pete

(Encyclopedia)Dye, Pete (Paul Dye, Jr.), 1925–2020, American golf course architect, often regarded as the father of modern golf course architecture, b. Urbana, Ohio. He was a successful amateur golfer and an insu...

Pelée

(Encyclopedia)Pelée pəlāˈ [key], volcano, 4,429 ft (1,350 m) high, on N Martinique, in the West Indies. On May 8, 1902, the day after the eruption of Soufrière on St. Vincent, Pelée also erupted, engulfing Sa...

Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeyevich

(Encyclopedia)Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeyevich vlədyēˈmĭr sĭrgāˈəvĭch sələvyôfˈ [key], 1853–1900, Russian religious philosopher and poet; son of Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev. Soloviev believed in the i...

Bevan, Aneurin

(Encyclopedia)Bevan, Aneurin ənīˈrĭn bĕˈvən [key], 1897–1960, British political leader. A coal miner and trade unionist, he served (1929–60) in Parliament as a member of the Labour party. As minister of ...

Young, Iris Marion

(Encyclopedia)Young, Iris Marion, 1949–2006, American philosopher and political theorist, b. New York, Ph.D. Penn State University, 1974. An activist-intellectual, ...

bureaucracy

(Encyclopedia)bureaucracy byo͝orŏkˈrəsē [key], the administrative structure of any large organization, public or private. Ideally bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical authority relations, defined spher...

Lewis, Sinclair

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Sinclair, 1885–1951, American novelist, b. Sauk Centre, Minn., grad. Yale Univ., 1908. Probably the greatest satirist of his era, Lewis wrote novels that present a devastating picture of midd...

Kafka, Franz

(Encyclopedia)Kafka, Franz fränts käfˈkä [key], 1883–1924, German-language novelist, b. Prague. Along with Joyce, Kafka is perhaps the most influential of 20th-century writers. From a middle-class Jewish fami...

Browse by Subject