Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

International Monetary Fund

(Encyclopedia)International Monetary Fund (IMF), specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1945. It was planned at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944), and its headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Th...

Godwin, William

(Encyclopedia)Godwin, William, 1756–1836, English author and political philosopher. A minister in his youth, he was, however, plagued by religious doubts and gave up preaching in 1783 for a literary career. His E...

Richelieu

(Encyclopedia)Richelieu rĭshˈəlo͞o [key], river, c.75 mi (120 km) long, issuing from the north end of Lake Champlain, near the N.Y.–Que. border, and flowing N across S Que. to the St. Lawrence River at Sorel....

Armstrong, Samuel Chapman

(Encyclopedia)Armstrong, Samuel Chapman, 1839–93, American educator, philanthropist, and soldier, b. Hawaiian Islands, of missionary parents, grad. Williams, 1862. He served in the Union army in the Civil War, ri...

La Farge, Oliver

(Encyclopedia)La Farge, Oliver lä färzh [key], 1901–63, American writer and anthropologist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1924; M.A., 1929). He conducted three archaeological expeditions to Arizona and...

McLuhan, Marshall

(Encyclopedia)McLuhan, Marshall (Herbert Marshall McLuhan), 1911–80, Canadian communications theorist and educator, b. Edmonton, Alta. He taught at the Univ. of Toronto (1946–80) and at other institutions of hi...

Cockcroft, Sir John Douglas

(Encyclopedia)Cockcroft, Sir John Douglas, 1897–1967, English physicist, educated at the Univ. of Manchester and St. John's College, Cambridge. He was a fellow of St. John's College (1928–46) and professor of n...

Siebold, Philipp Franz van

(Encyclopedia)Siebold, Philipp Franz van fēˈlĭp fränts fen zēˈbôlt [key], 1796–1866, German naturalist and physician; son of A. E. von Siebold. He was noted for his studies of the natural history, ethnogra...

Taylor, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Edward, c.1642–1729, American poet and clergyman, b. England, considered America's foremost colonial poet. He immigrated to America in 1668 and graduated from Harvard in 1671. From then unti...

Broch, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Broch, Hermann hĕrˈmän brôkh [key], 1886–1951, Austrian novelist. Broch is one of the masters of European modernism. Influenced by Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, and the Vien...