Dictionaries 23

In its more than 65 years of existence, the International Monetary Fund has evolved from a small, obscure international agency, with new and uncertain responsibilities, into a powerful institution t……続きを見る

The modern reputation of Friends in the United States and Europe is grounded in the relief work they have conducted in the presence and aftermath of war. Friends (also known as Quakers) have coordin……続きを見る

Navigating government documents is a task that requires considerable knowledge of specialized terms and acronyms. This required knowledge nearly amounts to knowing a completely different language. T……続きを見る

The monarch is the United Kingdom's head of state, exercising powers that are circumscribed by common law, convention, and statute law. Nowadays, many of the sovereign's functions are ceremonial but……続きを見る

The sport of tennis has been played in one form or another for more than 800 years. It can trace its roots to games played by monks in the 12th century. Through the years the game has evolved from o……続きを見る

For Israel-more so than for any other state-an effective Intelligence Community has been a matter of life and death. Over the past half-century or so, Israel has created and refined what is broadly ……続きを見る

Benin is now perceived of as a model of democracy in Africa because it has successfully established a democratic political system based on consensus and regular and fair elections, and it continues ……続きを見る

For Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War altered forever the history, topography, people, economy, and politics of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), Cambodia, and L……続きを見る

The Byzantine Empire dates back to Constantine the Great, the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who, in 330 AD, moved the imperial capital from Rome to a port city in modern-day Turkey, whi……続きを見る

Almost from the moment in 1940 that Otto Frisch and Rudofl Peierls suggested, from their small office in the University of Birmingham, that an atomic weapon could be miniaturized and delivered to it……続きを見る

Soccer is the world's most popular sport and one of the globe's best known cultural practices. The pinnacle of the sport worldwide is the FIFA World Cup, a competition held every four years, which c……続きを見る

Kazakhstan is in some ways a very old nation dating back to the Kazakh Khanate of 1458, but it dramatically transformed within the Russian Empire and even more so during the period when it was part ……続きを見る

Taiwan was able to solidly build and sustain a film industry only after locally-produced Mandarin films secured markets in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Though only a smal……続きを見る

One of Japan's major religions, Shinto has no doctrines and there are no sacred texts from which religious authority can be derived. It does not have an identifiable historical founder, and it has s……続きを見る

Although relatively small, the northern countries of Scandinavia have made a disproportionately large contribution to world cinema. Indeed, some of their films are among the best known of all times,……続きを見る

In less than 120 years an activity invented by one man to alleviate winter boredom for a college gym class has evolved into a worldwide multi-billion dollar enterprise. It is impossible for Dr. Jame……続きを見る

One of the world’s poorest nations, Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Haiti proclaimed its independence from France on January 1, 1804 following the only successful ……続きを見る

New religious movements-commonly known as cults-are defined as organizations that have arisen within the last 200 years. Most treatments of these movements have typically resorted to sensationalism ……続きを見る

The Republic of the Sudan was long the largest country in Africa and, according to the general consensus, also one of the least successful in many ways. This was not entirely its fault since it lay ……続きを見る

The foreign relations of the People's Republic of China have gone through dramatic change since 1949. The strong-man rule of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party leader's dominance of Chinese ……続きを見る

Skiing is one of the oldest modes of transportation known, predating the wheel with dated artifacts to prove its pedigree. Skiing for sport, however, did not become common until about 150 years ago.……続きを見る

The fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Republic of the Congo provides a comprehensive set of references on the country’s history, politics, economics, and culture. It traces the careers ……続きを見る

Burkina Faso, known as Upper Volta until its independence from France in 1960, and locally called the “land of the upright people,” is a medium-sized land-locked country with no less than six neighb……続きを見る

William Jefferson Clinton’s legacy remains a matter of significant contention among historians, political scientists, and pundits even after a decade of time to reflect. The narrative of Clinton’s t……続きを見る

In the years immediately following World War II, information was disclosed about what has been termed the shadow war of the existence of hitherto secret agencies. In Germany it was the Abwehr and th……続きを見る

Asian American literature is one of the most recent forms of ethnic literature and is already becoming one of the most prominent, given the large number of writers, the growing ethnic population fro……続きを見る

There are several eras in the history of Christianity radical forms of the tradition are obvious: the early church of the first five centuries, the medieval era, the age of reform, the early modern ……続きを見る

Asia is one of the most rapidly developing regions in the world, and knowledge of the individual countries is crucial for our understanding of the area. The Republic of the Philippines, composed of ……続きを見る

In this reference, Buffery and Marcer cover all of the areas historically inhabited by the Catalan people. These are, in order of size and population: Catalonia, which accounts for over half of the ……続きを見る

The United States Navy has evolved in the last century and a half from humble and often frustrating beginnings during and after the Revolutionary War to become the strongest navy in the world with r……続きを見る