Austrian statesman and trusted counsellor of Emperor Charles VI. He created the political system that was based upon the Pragmatic Sanction; it was intended to guarantee the peaceful accession of Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa to the entire Habsburg inheritance. ...
the direct exchange of goods or services-without an intervening medium of exchange or money-either according to established rates of exchange or by bargaining. It is considered the oldest form of commerce. Barter is common among traditional societies, particularly in those ...
American writer best known for novels that combine philosophical depth and complexity with biting satire and boisterous, frequently bawdy humour. Much of Barth's writing is concerned with the seeming impossibility of choosing the right action in a world that has ...
Swiss Protestant theologian, probably the most influential of the 20th century. Closely supported by his lifelong friend and colleague, the theologian Eduard Thurneysen, he initiated a radical change in Protestant thought, stressing the "wholly otherness of God" over the anthropocentrism ...
French essayist and social and literary critic whose writings on semiotics, the formal study of symbols and signs pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, helped establish structuralism and the New Criticism as leading intellectual movements.
child actor who epitomized Hollywood's vision of a proper little English boy in such Depression-era films as Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) and Captains Courageous (1937).
cartographer and map and atlas publisher who improved the standards of British cartography and introduced into Great Britain the use of contours and systematic colour layering to show relief.
French premier (1913), conservative statesman, and long-time colleague of Raymond Poincare. He was assassinated with King Alexander of Yugoslavia during the latter's visit to France in 1934.
town, north-central Guyana, in tropical rain forests in which the Essequibo, Mazaruni, and Cuyuni rivers meet. A small commercial centre, Bartica is situated at the head of navigation by small oceangoing ships, on the Essequibo River 50 mi (80 km) ...
mountain in Bellenden-Ker Range, northeastern Queensland, Australia. It is the highest point in the state and rises to 5,287 ft (1,611 m) in an area reserved as a national park. Its slopes have the climate of a rain forest and ...
city, seat (1907) of Washington county, northeastern Oklahoma, U.S., on the Caney River. It was settled in the 1870s around Jacob Bartles's trading post. Growth was spurred by the discovery of oil in 1897 and the arrival of the Atchison, ...
bibliographer who made his greatest contribution to linguistics with his pioneer work, Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States (1848). It went through four editions and was translated into Dutch ...
type of 16th-century German jug, characterized by a round belly and a mask of a bearded man applied in relief to the neck. This salt-glazed stoneware jug is associated particularly with Cologne and Frechen, where it was manufactured in considerable ...
composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and teacher, noted for the Hungarian flavour of his major musical works, which include orchestral works, string quartets, piano solos, several stage works, a cantata, and a number of settings of folk songs for voice and piano.
Russian anthropologist who made valuable contributions to the study of the social and cultural history of Islam and of the Tajik Iranians and literate Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
lawyer, law teacher at Perugia, and chief among the postglossators, or commentators, a group of northern Italian jurists who, from the mid-14th century, wrote on the Roman (civil) law. Their predecessors, the glossators, had worked at Bologna from about 1125.
joint recipient, with Odd Hassel of Norway, of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on "conformational analysis," the study of the three-dimensional geometric structure of complex molecules, now an essential part of organic chemistry.
statesman who guided the Australian federation movement to a successful conclusion and became the first prime minister of the resulting commonwealth in 1901.
rickettsial infection limited to South America, caused by the bacterium Bartonella bacilliformis of the order Rickettsiales. Bartonellosis is characterized by two distinctive clinical stages: Oroya fever, an acute febrile anemia of rapid onset, bone and joint pains, and a high ...
the third of four divisions (in ascending order) of the Eocene Series, representing all those rocks deposited worldwide during the Bartonian Age (43.6 to 40 million years ago). Together with the underlying Lutetian Stage, it constitutes the Middle Eocene; the ...
city, seat (1861) of Polk county, central Florida, U.S. It lies near the Peace River and Lake Hancock, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Lakeland. In 1851 the Readding Blount family built a stockade community known as Fort Blount on ...
a pseudepigraphal work (not in any canon of scripture), whose primary theme is whether or not God's relationship with man is just. The book is also called The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch because it was preserved only in the 6th-century ...
ancient text purportedly written by Baruch, secretary and friend of Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet. The text is still extant in Greek and in several translations from Greek into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and other languages. The Book of Baruch ...
town, north-central Bihar state, northeastern India. It lies north of the Ganges River and is part of the Begusarai urban agglomeration. Formerly called Jhuldabhaj, it merged with Phulwaria township in 1961. It has major highway, rail, and ferry connections and ...
