Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

291 results found

Allen, Woody

(Encyclopedia)Allen, Woody, 1935–, American actor, writer, and director, one of contemporary America's leading filmmakers, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Allen Stewart Konigsberg. Allen began his career writing for televi...

Darwinism

(Encyclopedia)Darwinism, concept of evolution developed in the mid-19th cent. by Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin's meticulously documented observations led him to question the then current belief in special creation ...

circumcision

(Encyclopedia)circumcision sûrˌkəmsĭzhˈən [key], operation to remove the foreskin covering the glans of the penis. It dates back to prehistoric times and was widespread throughout the Middle East as a religio...

Altman, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Altman, Robert, 1925–2006, American film director, b. Kansas City, Mo. One of the most original talents in late-20th-century American filmmaking, he created complex, often loosely plotted movies mar...

Mueller, Robert Swan, 3d

(Encyclopedia)Mueller, Robert Swan, 3d, 1944–, American law enforcement official, b. New York City, B.A. Princeton, 1966, M.A. New York Univ., 1967, J.D. Univ. of Virginia School of Law, 1973. After serving in Vi...

Mills, Charles Wade

(Encyclopedia)Mills, Charles W., 1951–2021, philosopher and political theorist, b. London, Ph.D. University of Toronto, 1985. Born in the U.K. and raised in Jamaica...

privacy, right of

(Encyclopedia)privacy, right of, the right to be left alone without unwarranted intrusion by government, media, or other institutions or individuals. While a consensus supporting the right to privacy has emerged (a...

marriage

(Encyclopedia)marriage, socially sanctioned union that reproduces the family. In all societies the choice of partners is generally guided by rules of exogamy (the obligation to marry outside a group); some societie...

Dreiser, Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Dreiser, Theodore drīˈsər, –zər [key], 1871–1945, American novelist, b. Terre Haute, Ind. A pioneer of naturalism in American literature, Dreiser wrote novels reflecting his mechanistic view o...

fluke

(Encyclopedia)fluke, parasitic flatworm of the trematoda class, related to the tapeworm. Instead of the cilia, external sense organs, and epidermis of the free-living flatworms, adult flukes have sucking disks with...