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dialectical materialism

(Encyclopedia)dialectical materialism, official philosophy of Communism, based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as elaborated by G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin, and Joseph Stalin. In theory dialecti...

culture

(Encyclopedia)culture, in anthropology, the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society. Cultural differences dist...

Liu Chih-chi

(Encyclopedia)Liu Chih-chi lyo͞o jûr-jē [key], 661–721, Chinese T'ang dynasty historian. Drawing on experience gained while working on histories of the preceding dynasties, he wrote the first important Chinese...

New Mexico, University of

(Encyclopedia)New Mexico, University of, main campus at Albuquerque; state supported; coeducational; chartered 1889, opened 1892. It maintains graduate centers at Los Alamos and Santa Fe and conducts joint research...

speech, freedom of

(Encyclopedia)speech, freedom of, liberty to speak and otherwise express oneself and one's opinions. Like freedom of the press (see press, freedom of the), which pertains to the publication of speech, freedom of sp...

taffeta

(Encyclopedia)taffeta, cloth, originally silk but now also made of synthetic fibers, supposed to have originated in Persia. The name, derived from Persian, means “twisted woven.” Taffeta is in the same class an...

Chikamatsu, Monzaemon

(Encyclopedia)Chikamatsu, Monzaemon mônˈzäĕmŏnˈ chēˌkämäˈtso͞o [key], 1653–1725, the first professional Japanese dramatist. Chikamatsu wrote primarily for the puppet stage in the Tokugawa shogunate. H...

Frege, Gottlob

(Encyclopedia)Frege, Gottlob gôtˈlōp frāˈgə [key], 1848–1925, German philosopher and mathematician. He was professor of mathematics (1879–1918) at the Univ. of Jena. Frege was one of the founders of moder...

Massah

(Encyclopedia)Massah mĕrˈĭbə [key], or Massah and Meribah, in the Bible, symbolic name of the place, near Horeb, where Moses brought forth water from the rock. A similar event and an equally symbolic name conce...

Gombrich, E. H.

(Encyclopedia)Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich), 1909–2001, British art historian and scholar, b. Vienna, grad. Univ. of Vienna (1933). From a culturally prominent Austrian-Jewish family, he fled German...