Peranakan

Until

Emecheta, Buchi

Emecheta was married at age 16 and immigrated with her husband to London in 1962. The problems she encountered in London during the early 1960s provided background for the books that are called her immigrant novels. Her first two books,

Anaximander

Anaximander is thought to have been a pupil of Thales of Miletus. Evidence exists that he wrote treatises on geography, astronomy, and cosmology that survived for several centuries, and that he made

B�renger, Alphonse-marie

Appointed judge in Grenoble in 1808, B�renger had a successful career in the magistracy during Napoleon's First Empire and served as a representative for Dr�me d�partement during Napoleon's

Poynting Vector

Where m is the permeability of the medium through which the radiation passes, E is the electric field intensity, and B is the magnetic induction. Thus,

Wilkes, Charles

Wilkes entered the navy as a midshipman in 1818, became a lieutenant in 1826, and in 1830 was placed in charge of the depot of instruments and charts from which the Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office developed. From 1838 to 1842 he commanded an exploring and surveying expedition

Sucksdorff, Arne

Swedish motion-picture director important in the post-World War II revival of the Swedish cinema because of his internationally acclaimed sensitivity in photographing nature. His patiently photographed flowers, insects, birds, and animals are composed into films in which the rhythm of nature is dominant and man is only

Tracy, Benjamin F(ranklin)

Tracy began his career as a lawyer; he was admitted to the bar in 1851 and served as district attorney of Tioga County, N.Y., from 1853 to 1859. A founder of the local Republican Party, he served briefly in the state legislature (1862) and fought for the Union

Ekibastuz

City and major opencut coal-mining centre in northeastern Kazakstan, on the Ertis-Qaraghandy Canal. Coal was discovered in the region in 1876 and was mined on a small scale. Only after construction of a railway in 1953 did large-scale exploitation of Ekibastuz' rich but low-grade coal seams begin. In the 1970s Ekibastuz was the third largest coal-mining centre in the Soviet Union,

Haboob

Hot and moist, strong wind that occurs along the southern edges of the Sahara in The Sudan and is associated with large sandstorms and duststorms and may be accompanied by thunderstorms and small tornadoes. It usually lasts about three hours, is most common during the summer, and may blow from any direction. A haboob may transport huge quantities of sand or dust, which

La Salle

City, La Salle county, north-central Illinois, U.S., on the Illinois River. With Peru (west) and Oglesby (south), it forms a tri-city unit. Settled in 1830 and named for the explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, its growth was stimulated by the Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848) and the arrival in the 1850s of the Illinois Central and Rock Island railroads. Its economy, based mainly on coal

Bruant, Lib�ral

Lib�ral Bruant was the most notable of a family that produced a series of architects active in France from the 16th to the 18th century. He was the son of S�bastien and brother of Jacques, who designed the Hall of the Corporation des Drapiers,

Olson, Charles (john)

Olson was educated at Wesleyan University, where he earned an M.A. in 1933. He taught at Clark University, Harvard University, and Radcliffe College, but his real influence began in the late 1940s as an instructor and then as rector (1951 - 56) at Black

Kabila, Laurent-d�sir�

Congolese political leader (b. Nov. 27, 1939, Jadotville, Katanga province, Belgian Congo - confirmed dead on Jan. 18, 2001, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC; formerly Zaire]), was president of the DRC from 1997 until his death. In 1960, after studying in France and Tanzania, Kabila became a youth leader in a political party allied to Congo's first postindependence prime minister, Marxist-Maoist

Race, Contemporary perspectives

Modern scientific views of human diversity are the subjects of Ashley Montagu (ed.), The Concept of Race (1969); Jonathan Marks, Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History (1995); Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and F. Cavalli-Sforza, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (1995); Christopher Stringer and Robin McKie, African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity (1996); and A.E. Mourant, Blood Relations: Blood Groups and Anthropology (1983).

Aesthetic Distance

The frame of reference that an artist creates by the use of technical devices in and around the work of art to differentiate it psychologically from reality. German playwright Bertolt Brecht built his dramatic theory known in English as the alienation effect to accomplish aesthetic distance.

Seward

City, southern Alaska, U.S., on Kenai Peninsula, at the head of Resurrection Bay. Founded in 1903 as a supply base and ocean terminus for a railway to the Yukon Valley (since 1913, the Alaska Railroad), it was named for William H. Seward, the secretary of state who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Its ice-free port provides an important freight dock for interior Alaska. Tourism

Arpino, Gerald

While serving in the U.S. Coast Guard (1945 - 48), Arpino met dancer Robert Joffrey in Seattle, Wash., and learned dancing in his spare time. Later, after training and performing in New York City, he toured with the Ballet Russe and appeared in Broadway musicals. He helped Joffrey

European Exploration

The motives that spur human beings to examine their environment are many. Strong among them are the satisfaction of curiosity, the pursuit of trade, the spread of religion, and the desire for security and political power.

Auckland

When Europeans arrived in the early 19th century, the region was densely populated by Maoris. European settlements were

God In Christ, Church Of

Predominantly black Pentecostal church that originated as an outgrowth of the Holiness movement. The date and place of the group's establishment is disputed between two member bodies, but the founding role of a dynamic preacher named Charles H. Mason is acknowledged by both. During the late 19th century, Mason led Holiness churches in Jackson, Miss., and Memphis, Tenn.

La Farge, Oliver (hazard Perry)

At Harvard University La Farge pursued his interest in American Indian culture, specializing in anthropology and archaeological research. Although highly respected in

Tunisia, Settlement patterns

Tunisia is divided into four natural and demographic regions: the north, which is relatively fertile and well watered; the semiarid central region; As-Sahil (the Sahel) in the east-central coastal region, which is preeminently olive-growing country; and the desert south, where, except in the oases, all vegetation disappears. In the central and southern regions, there are

Joint Disease, Neurogenic arthropathy

A Charcot joint is a severe degenerative disease that develops when the sensory mechanisms of joints are impaired. The current view is that these joints become excessively strained because the ability to receive stimuli from bodily structures and organs necessary for normal limitation of motion is lacking. As a result the supporting tissues are torn and extreme

European Plain

One of the greatest uninterrupted expanses of plain on the Earth's surface. It sweeps from the Pyrenees Mountains on the French-Spanish border across northern Europe to the Ural Mountains in Russia. In western Europe the plain is comparatively narrow, rarely exceeding 200 miles (320 kilometres) in width, but as it stretches eastward it broadens steadily until it reaches

Leninism

In the Communist

Ancient Rome, Second Punic War (218 - 201 BC)

It seemed that the superiority of the Romans at sea ought to have enabled them to choose the field of battle. They decided to send one army to Spain and another to Sicily and Africa. But before their preparations were complete, Hannibal began the series of operations that dictated the course of the war for the greater part of its duration. He realized that as long as the

Tibet, Climate

Although Tibetans refer to their country as Gangs-ljongs or Kha-ba-can (�Land of Snows�), the climate is generally dry, and most of Tibet receives only 18 inches (460 millimetres) of rain and snow annually. The Himalayas act as a barrier to the monsoon (rain-bearing) winds from the south, and precipitation decreases from south to north. The perpetual snow line lies at about 16,000 feet in

Shadhiliyah

Also spelled �Shaziliyah, � widespread brotherhood of Muslim mystics (Sufis), founded on the teachings of Abu al-Hasan ash-Shadhili (d. 1258) in Alexandria. Shadhili teachings stress five points: fear of God, living the sunna (practices) of the Prophet, disdain of mankind, fatalism, and turning to God in times of happiness and distress. The order, which spread throughout North Africa and the Sudan and into Arabia, was