Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

debt, public

(Encyclopedia)debt, public, indebtedness of a central government expressed in money terms, often referred to as national debt. The debt is computed differently by nearly every nation. Some authorities exclude all g...

Alcott, Louisa May

(Encyclopedia)Alcott, Louisa May, 1832–88, American author, b. Germantown, Pa.; daughter of Bronson Alcott. Mostly educated by her father, she was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and her first book, Flower Fable...

Highlands

(Encyclopedia)Highlands, mountain region in the northern extremity of Scotland. It consists roughly of the Scottish area north of the imaginary line from Dumbarton to Stonehaven excluding the Orkneys, the Shetlands...

Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Encyclopedia)Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, founded in 1870. The Metropolitan Museum is the foremost repository of art in the United States and one of the world's great museums. It opened in 1880 on it...

Embargo Act of 1807

(Encyclopedia)Embargo Act of 1807, passed Dec. 22, 1807, by the U.S. Congress in answer to the British orders in council restricting neutral shipping and to Napoleon's restrictive Continental System. The U.S. merch...

Ute

(Encyclopedia)Ute yo͞ot, yo͞oˈtē [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In t...

Campania

(Encyclopedia)Campania kämpäˈnyä [key], region, 5,249 sq mi (13,595 sq km), central Italy, extending from ...

Pima

(Encyclopedia)Pima pēˈmə [key], Native North American tribe of S Arizona. They speak the Pima language of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic family (see Native American languages). There are t...

Phillips, Wendell

(Encyclopedia)Phillips, Wendell, 1811–84, American reformer and orator, b. Boston, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1831; LL.B., 1834). He was admitted to the bar in 1834 but, having sufficient income of his own, he abandone...

agricultural subsidies

(Encyclopedia)agricultural subsidies, financial assistance to farmers through government-sponsored price-support programs. Beginning in the 1930s most industrialized countries developed agricultural price-support p...
 

Browse by Subject