Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

coeducation

(Encyclopedia)coeducation, instruction of both sexes in the same institution. The economic benefits gained from joint classes and the need to secure equality for women in industrial, professional, and political act...

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency

(Encyclopedia)Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), specialized agency of the United Nations. Formed in 1988, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., it is a member of the World Bank Group (see Internatio...

balance of power

(Encyclopedia)balance of power, system of international relations in which nations seek to maintain an approximate equilibrium of power among many rivals, thus preventing the preponderance of any one state. Crucial...

population

(Encyclopedia)population, the inhabitants of a given area, but perhaps most importantly, the human inhabitants of the earth (numbering about 7.5 billion in 2017), who by their increasing numbers and corresponding i...

Togoland

(Encyclopedia)Togoland tōˈgō [key], historic region (c.33,500 sq mi/86,800 sq km), W Africa, bordering on the Gulf of Guinea in the south. The western section of Togoland is now part of Ghana, and the eastern po...

trade

(Encyclopedia)trade, traffic in goods. Conducted by gift, barter, or sale, trade is one of the most widespread of all social institutions. The theory of commerce as imposed by the national state has varied from...

disarmament, nuclear

(Encyclopedia)disarmament, nuclear, the reduction and limitation of the various nuclear weapons in the military forces of the world's nations. The atomic bombs dropped (1945) on Japan by the United States in World ...

neutrality

(Encyclopedia)neutrality, in international law, status of a nation that refrains from participation in a war between other states and maintains an impartial attitude toward the belligerents. Neutrality is not to be...

piracy

(Encyclopedia)piracy, robbery committed or attempted on the high seas. It is distinguished from privateering in that the pirate holds no commission from and receives the protection of no nation but usually attacks ...

Leontief, Wassily

(Encyclopedia)Leontief, Wassily lēˈŏntēf [key], 1906–99, American economist, b. Russia, grad. Univ. of Berlin (Ph.D., 1928). The son of a Russian economist, he and his family left the Soviet Union in 1925 bec...