Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Schlieffen, Alfred, Graf von

(Encyclopedia)Schlieffen, Alfred, Graf von älˈfrāt gräf fən shlēˈfən [key], 1833–1913, German field marshal and strategist. In the tradition of the Prussian officer corps, Schlieffen was a professional so...

Radek, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Radek, Karl kärl räˈdyĭk [key], 1885–1939?, international Communist leader and journalist, b. Lviv (then in Austrian Poland); his original name was Sobelsohn. Radek participated in the 1905 revo...

Rhineland

(Encyclopedia)Rhineland rīnˈlăndˌ [key], Ger. Rheinland, region of W Germany, along the Rhine River. The term is sometimes used to designate only the former Rhine Province of Prussia, but in its general meaning...

Pan-Arabism

(Encyclopedia)Pan-Arabism, general term for the modern movement for political unification among the Arab nations of the Middle East. Since the Ottoman Turks rose to power in the 14th cent., there have been stirring...

Weld, Theodore Dwight

(Encyclopedia)Weld, Theodore Dwight, 1803–95, American abolitionist, b. Hampton, Conn. In 1825 his family moved to upstate New York, and he entered Hamilton College. While in college he became a disciple of the e...

surrealism

(Encyclopedia)surrealism sərēˈəlĭzəm [key], literary and art movement influenced by Freudianism and dedicated to the expression of imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason an...

Communist party, in the United States

(Encyclopedia)Communist party, in the United States, political party that espoused the Marxist-Leninist principles of communism. In 1945, Browder's policy was attacked as being one of the “right deviationism,�...

Delaunay-Terk, Sonia

(Encyclopedia)Delaunay-Terk, Sonia dəlōnāˈ-tĕrkˈ [key], 1885–1979, Russian painter and designer; wife of Robert Delaunay. Raised in St. Petersburg, she moved to Paris in 1905. With her husband, she develope...

Damas, Léon

(Encyclopedia)Damas, Léon lāôNˈ dämäˈ [key] (Léon-Gentran Damas), 1912–78, French poet, b. French Guiana. With Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire he was one of the first adherents of négritude, a cultur...

Coffin, William Sloane, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Coffin, William Sloane, Jr., 1924–2006, American Protestant social activist, b. New York City, nephew of Henry Sloane Coffin. Strongly influenced by the social philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr, Coffin...