sisal, (Agave sisalana), plant of the family Asparagaceae and its fibre, the most important of the leaf fibre group. The plant is native to Central America, where its fibre has been used since pre-Columbian times. Commercial interest in sisal was stimulated by the development of the machine grain

Agavoideae, the agave subfamily of the flowering plant family Asparagaceae (order Asparagales), consisting of 23 genera and 637 species of short-stemmed, often woody plants distributed throughout tropical, subtropical, and temperate areas of the world. Though formerly treated as its own family

Agavoideae: Some species of Agave, notably A. tequilana, contain a sap that is fermented to produce alcoholic drinks, including tequila and mescal (mezcal).

Agavoideae, the agave subfamily of the flowering plant family Asparagaceae (order Asparagales), consisting of 23 genera and 637 species of short-stemmed, often woody plants distributed throughout tropical, subtropical, and temperate areas of the world. Though formerly treated as its own family

Agau, an ancient people who settled in the northern and central Ethiopian Plateau and are associated with the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the area. The term Agau also refers to any of several contemporaneous groups that are either culturally similar or linked by a Cushitic

Ipswich, town (township), Essex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Ipswich River (there bridged since 1764), 28 miles (45 km) north-northeast of Boston. Settled in 1633 as Agawam, it was incorporated in 1634 and renamed for Ipswich, England. Lace making, the town’s first

Agostino Agazzari was an Italian composer famous for his treatise, Del sonare sopra ’l basso con tutti li stromenti e dell’uso loro nel conserto (1607; “On Playing Upon the Thoroughbass with All the Instruments and Their Use in an Ensemble”), one of the earliest instruction books for performing

preschool education: History: …the Agazzi sisters, Rosa and Carolina, initiated a blending of Aporti’s infant school and Froebel’s kindergarten and produced a prototypical Italian maternal school (scuola materna). In the school the children were induced to become collaborators in the search for the instruments of their own education—seeking realia (objects from real life)…

preschool education: History: In 1892 in Italy, the Agazzi sisters, Rosa and Carolina, initiated a blending of Aporti’s infant school and Froebel’s kindergarten and produced a prototypical Italian maternal school (scuola materna). In the school the children were induced to become collaborators in the search for the instruments of their own education—seeking realia…

Ede: …been founded about 1500 by Timi Agbale, a hunter and warlord sent by Alaafin (Alafin; “King”) Kori of Old Oyo (Katunga), capital of the Oyo empire, to establish a settlement to protect the Oyo caravan route to Benin (127 miles [204 km] to the southeast). Ede is a local trading…

Ecbatana, ancient city on the site of which stands the modern city of Hamadān, Iran. Ecbatana was the capital of Media and was subsequently the summer residence of the Achaemenian kings and one of the residences of the Parthian kings. According to ancient Greek writers, the city was founded in

St. John Paul II: Political and cultural messages: …by a 23-year-old Turkish man, Mehmet Ali Agca. Meanwhile, the Poles’ other spiritual leader, Primate Cardinal Wyszyński, lay dying of cancer. The sudden prospect of losing both men unsettled the Solidarity movement. Although no conspiracy in the assassination attempt was ever proved in court, the widespread suspicion that the Soviets…

scientific modeling: …model of note is the general circulation model, which is used for simulating human- and non-human-induced climate change. Modeling of geologic events, such as convection within Earth and theoretical movements of Earth’s plates, has advanced scientists’ knowledge of volcanoes and earthquakes and of the evolution of Earth’s surface. In ecology,…

Great Mother of the Gods, ancient Oriental and Greco-Roman deity, known by a variety of local names; the name Cybele or Cybebe predominates in Greek and Roman literature from about the 5th century bc onward. Her full official Roman name was Mater Deum Magna Idaea (Great Idaean Mother of the Gods).

Christianity: The ages of the world: By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God’s dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that reworked Indo-Iranian notions…

human aging, physiological changes that take place in the human body leading to senescence, the decline of biological functions and of the ability to adapt to metabolic stress. In humans the physiological developments are normally accompanied by psychological and behavioral changes, and other

aging, progressive physiological changes in an organism that lead to senescence, or a decline of biological functions and of the organism’s ability to adapt to metabolic stress. Aging takes place in a cell, an organ, or the total organism with the passage of time. It is a process that goes on over

family law: Age: In order to satisfy the requirement of a voluntary consent to a marriage, a party must have reached an age at which he or she is able to give meaningful consent, and it is also implied that a person may be legally disqualified on…

age distribution, in population studies, the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends of fertility. A population with persistently high fertility, for

Michel Leiris: …the autobiographical L’Âge d’homme (Manhood), which attracted much attention and was reissued in 1946. Self-deprecating and punitive, the work catalogs Leiris’ physical and moral flaws; he introduced the 1946 edition with an essay, “De la littérature considérée comme une tauromachie” (1946; The Autobiographer as Torero), comparing the courage required…

Luis Buñuel: Life and work: …second film, L’Age d’or (1930; The Golden Age), an assault on the repression of sex by organized religion. In one of its most-controversial scenes, Christ is seen leaving an orgy orchestrated by the Marquis de Sade. Before its release, MGM put both Buñuel and the film’s star, Lya Lys, under…

Denys Arcand: …comedy L’Âge des ténèbres (2007; Days of Darkness), in which he also acted; Le Règne de la beauté (2014; An Eye for Beauty), about a married architect who has an affair; and La Chute de l’empire américain (2018; The Fall of the American Empire), a satiric crime thriller that explores…

dating: Absolute dating: Although relative ages can generally be established on a local scale, the events recorded in rocks from different locations can be integrated into a picture of regional or global scale only if their sequence in time is firmly established. The time that has…

history of Europe: The Bronze Age: …than contracted, and sex and age were not expressed by body position but were reflected through elements such as grave goods or location within the cemetery.

ageism, the discrimination or expression of prejudice against an individual based on age. Older people are the most common targets of ageism, but younger people can also experience it. Ageism can have a negative impact on a person’s employment, health care, housing, and mental health, as well as on

ageism: Ageism’s impacts: The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), signed into law in 1967, was the first legislation in the United States to address age discrimination in the workplace. It initially provided protections for workers ages 40 to 65 but extended the maximum age to 70 in 1978…

age distribution, in population studies, the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends of fertility. A population with persistently high fertility, for

age set: …is usually known as an age grade.

Blake Lively: Gossip Girl, The Town, and A Simple Favor: …starred in the romantic fantasy-drama The Age of Adaline (2015) as a woman who stops aging after an accident and lives a solitary life until she falls in love after a chance encounter. In the horror thriller The Shallows (2016), Lively’s character fights for survival after she is stranded near…

The Age of Anxiety, poem by W.H. Auden, published in 1947. Described as a “baroque eclogue,” the poem was the last of Auden’s long poems; it won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1948. The poem highlights human isolation, a condition magnified by the lack of tradition or religious belief in the

Philippe Soupault: Le Temps des assassins (1945; Age of Assassins), a memoir, details Soupault’s six-month imprisonment by the Vichy government in Tunis, Tunisia, where he worked as a journalist and as director of Radio Tunis. A second autobiography, Mémoires de l’oubli (“Memoirs of Oblivion”), was published in 1981. Soupault also wrote a…

Auguste Rodin: Early life and work: …was exhibited in 1877 as The Age of Bronze. The realism of the work contrasted so greatly with the statues of Rodin’s contemporaries that he was accused of having formed its mold upon a living person.

family law: Age: In order to satisfy the requirement of a voluntary consent to a marriage, a party must have reached an age at which he or she is able to give meaningful consent, and it is also implied that a person may be legally disqualified on…

India: Social policy: …1856 to the crown’s timid Age of Consent Act of 1891, which merely raised the age of statutory rape for “consenting” Indian brides from 10 years to 12.

Jacob Burckhardt: Works of Jacob Burckhardt: …Zeit Konstantins des Grossen (1853; The Age of Constantine the Great, 1949) Burckhardt presented a picture of a transitional age, unhealthy and immoral but teeming with religious and cultural activity. While he recognized that the rise of Christianity was inevitable and that it was necessary for the development of an…

Jurassic Period, second of three periods of the Mesozoic Era. Extending from 201.3 million to 145 million years ago, it immediately followed the Triassic Period (251.9 million to 201.3 million years ago) and was succeeded by the Cretaceous Period (145 million to 66 million years ago). The Morrison

Age of Empires, computer game franchise designed by Ensemble Studios, an American company founded in 1995 and subsequently acquired by Microsoft Corporation. The original Age of Empires debuted in 1997 to critical acclaim and helped set the bar for the real-time strategy game genre, combining

Age of Empires: Age of Empires: Castle Siege, a loose adaptation of the classic game, was released for the mobile-device market in 2014.

Devonian Period, in geologic time, an interval of the Paleozoic Era that follows the Silurian Period and precedes the Carboniferous Period, spanning between about 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago. The Devonian Period is sometimes called the “Age of Fishes” because of the diverse, abundant,

Yi Munyŏl: In Yŏngung sidae (1984; The Age of Heroes), Yi imaginatively reconstructed what he imagined his father’s life might have been like after his defection to communist North Korea. In each of the 16 short stories making up Kŭdae tasbi nŭn kohyang e kaji mot’ari (1980; You Can’t Go Home…

Martin Scorsese: Films of the 1990s: GoodFellas, Cape Fear, and Casino: >The Age of Innocence. A lovingly rendered, subtly acerbic portrait of New York City’s upper crust in the late 19th century, the film revolves around the unconsummated love affair between sensitive lawyer Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose separation from…

The Age of Innocence, novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1920. The work presents a picture of upper-class New York society in the late 19th century. The story is presented as a kind of anthropological study of this society through references to the families and their activities as tribal. Winner

Ray Kurzweil: …array of prescient theories in The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990), which anticipated the explosion in popularity of the Internet. Kurzweil also wrote The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life (1993), which details a diet that he had used to help cure himself of diabetes. His book The Age of…

J.M. Coetzee: In Age of Iron (1990) Coetzee dealt directly with circumstances in contemporary South Africa, but in The Master of Petersburg (1994) he made reference to 19th-century Russia (particularly to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s work The Devils); both books treat the subject of literature in society. In 1999, with…

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.: In 1946 his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Jackson was published to widespread acclaim. In this book Schlesinger reinterpreted the American era of Jacksonian democracy in terms of its cultural, social, and economic aspects as well as its strictly political dimensions. Schlesinger’s major historical work was The Age of Roosevelt,…

Voltaire: Life with Mme du Châtelet: He began Le Siècle de Louis XIV, sketched out a universal history of kings, wars, civilization and manners that became the Essai sur les moeurs, and plunged into biblical exegesis. Mme du Châtelet herself wrote an Examen, highly critical of the two Testaments. It was at Cirey…

Ben Okri: Arcadia (2002); Starbook (2007); The Age of Magic (2014); and The Freedom Artist (2019).

Thomas Paine: In Europe: Rights of Man: …the first part of Paine’s Age of Reason was published (1794), and it was followed by Part II after his release (1796). Although Paine made it clear that he believed in a Supreme Being and, as a Deist, opposed only organized religion, the work won him a reputation as an…

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.: Schlesinger’s major historical work was The Age of Roosevelt, whose three separate volumes were entitled The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933 (1957), The Coming of the New Deal (1958), and The Politics of Upheaval (1960). In these books he described and narrated Roosevelt’s New Deal from a sympathetic standpoint.

Ray Kurzweil: His book The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) presents a vision of the 21st century as a time when computer technology would have advanced far enough to allow machines to operate on a level equivalent to that of the human brain. Computers, he predicted, would make complex…

Ethiopia: Challenge, revival, and decline (16th–19th century): The Zamana Masafent (“Age of the Princes”; 1769–1855), an era of feudal anarchy, had commenced.

Frederik Pohl: Pohl’s other novels include The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969); the Nebula Award-winning Man Plus (1976); Gateway (1977), which won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for best novel; Jem (1980), the first and only novel to capture a National Book Award for science fiction (hardcover), bestowed only…

Robert Fisk: …the Middle East (2005), and The Age of the Warrior: Selected Essays (2008). Fisk’s work was profiled in the documentary This Is Not a Movie (2019).

regression, in psychology, return of the ego to an earlier stage of development. Regression is considered a type of defense mechanism, uniquely characterized by age-inappropriate behaviours and impulses that typically manifest as a way of communicating distress. It may be involuntary, in which case

age set, a formally organized group consisting of every male (or female) of comparable age. In those societies chiefly identified with the practice, a person belonged, either from birth or from a determined age, to a named age set that passed through a series of stages, each of which had a

The Age, Australian daily newspaper published in Melbourne and widely considered to provide some of the finest news coverage in the country. It has been highly regarded for its dedication to accuracy. Originally established as an eight-page weekly in 1854 by the brothers John and Henry Cooke, it

age-area hypothesis, in anthropology, theory holding that the age of culture traits (elements of a culture) may be determined by examining their distribution over a large geographic area. The hypothesis states that widely distributed traits are older than those more narrowly distributed. It is

wage and salary: Human-capital theory: …investments therefore affect one’s “age-earnings profile,” the trajectory of earnings over one’s lifetime. Those who leave school early, for example, earn market wages for more years on average than those who take advantage of extended schooling, but those in the latter group typically earn higher wages over their lifetimes.…

macular degeneration: Age-related macular degeneration: The most common form of macular degeneration is age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and the incidence of this disease increases dramatically with age, affecting approximately 14 percent of those over age 80. AMD is the most common cause of vision loss in the…

aging: …the survivorship curve and the age-specific death rate, or Gompertz function. The relation of such factors as aging characteristics, constitutional vigour, physical factors, diet, and exposure to disease-causing organisms to the actuarial functions is complex. There is, nevertheless, no substitute for them as measures of the aging process and of…

Japan: The Tempō reforms: …also promulgated a land-requisition (agechi) order to bring daimyo and hatamoto domains surrounding Edo and Ōsaka under direct bakufu control: the stated object of this was the defense of Edo, but it also was designed to supplement the finances of the bakufu. The agechi order was finally withdrawn, however,…

old age, in human beings, the final stage of the normal life span. Definitions of old age are not consistent from the standpoints of biology, demography (conditions of mortality and morbidity), employment and retirement, and sociology. For statistical and public administrative purposes, however,

James Agee was an American poet, novelist, and writer for and about motion pictures. One of the most influential American film critics in the 1930s and ’40s, he applied rigorous intellectual and aesthetic standards to his reviews, which appeared anonymously in Time and signed in The Nation. Agee

aging, progressive physiological changes in an organism that lead to senescence, or a decline of biological functions and of the organism’s ability to adapt to metabolic stress. Aging takes place in a cell, an organ, or the total organism with the passage of time. It is a process that goes on over

ageism, the discrimination or expression of prejudice against an individual based on age. Older people are the most common targets of ageism, but younger people can also experience it. Ageism can have a negative impact on a person’s employment, health care, housing, and mental health, as well as on

Ageladas was a Greek sculptor said to have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias, and Polyclitus. This tradition testifies to his wide fame but is historically

animal social behavior: Social interactions involving sex: Some examples include the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and house wren (Troglodytes aedon) in North America and the great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) in Europe. In a few polygamous species, however, females mate with and accept care from multiple partners, a phenomenon referred to as polyandry, examples of which…

funnel weaver: Major genera and species: The grass spider (Agelenopsis naevia) is a common North American species and varies greatly in size and color. The body of the male may be up to 8 mm (about 0.3 inch) long; the female grows to about 19 mm (about 0.75 inch). Two wide, dark stripes often…

funnel weaver, (family Agelenidae), large family of more than 1,000 species and nearly 100 genera of spiders known for their flat webs that narrow as a funnel at one end. They are a common group with many species that are distributed worldwide. Funnel-weaver spiders are unrelated to the venomous

funnel weaver, (family Agelenidae), large family of more than 1,000 species and nearly 100 genera of spiders known for their flat webs that narrow as a funnel at one end. They are a common group with many species that are distributed worldwide. Funnel-weaver spiders are unrelated to the venomous

Agen, town, capital of Lot-et-Garonne département, Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou région, southwestern France. It lies along the Garonne River at the foot of Ermitage Hill (530 feet [162 metres]), northwest of Toulouse. Mentioned by Julius Caesar as Aginnum, capital of the Nitiobriges people, it was

Beta Centauri, second brightest star (after Alpha Centauri) in the southern constellation Centaurus and the 10th brightest star in the sky. Beta Centauri is about 390 light-years from Earth. It is a system of three B-type stars. The two brightest stars orbit each other every 357 days and form a

Atlas: The combined Atlas-Agena rocket, featuring an Atlas booster coupled with an Agena upper stage, was used for launching lunar and planetary probes as well as Earth-orbiting satellites, such as Seasat, where the Agena stage was also the spacecraft. The Atlas-Centaur rocket combined an Atlas first stage, which…

Agenais, former province of France, of which Agen was the centre and to which the modern département of Lot-et-Garonne nearly corresponds. In ancient Gaul, Agenais was the country of the Nitiobriges, then a Gallo-Roman civitas, whose limits became those of the diocese of Agen. Having in general

Agence France-Presse (AFP), French cooperative news agency, one of the world’s great wire news services. It is based in Paris, where it was founded under its current name in 1944, but its roots go to the Bureau Havas, which was created in 1832 by Charles-Louis Havas, who translated reports from

Agence France-Presse: …the Bureau Havas became the Agence Havas, the world’s first true news agency. Stressing rapid transmission of the news, Agence Havas established the first telegraph service in France in 1845. Between 1852 and 1919 the agency worked in close collaboration with an advertising firm, the Correspondance General Havas. Staff correspondents…

Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Canadian government organization founded in 1989 that coordinates spaceflight activities. Its headquarters are in Longueuil, Que. The chief executive of the CSA is the president, who is assisted by a senior vice president and the directors of four branches: Space

European Space Agency (ESA), European space and space-technology research organization founded in 1975 from the merger of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), both established in 1964. Members include Austria, Belgium, the Czech

agency, an independent administrative authority that participates in running specific parts of an economy or society. Agencies undertake analysis and make decisions to regulate economic and social issues for which steering by the “invisible hand” of the market is judged to be either ineffective or

agency, the property or capacity of actors to make things happen. The concept of agency is central to political theory. Political activities are carried out by agents, whose agency inheres in their power to produce effects. In politics, agency is generally reserved for human actors, and, more

agency, in law, the relationship that exists when one person or party (the principal) engages another (the agent) to act for him—e.g., to do his work, to sell his goods, to manage his business. The law of agency thus governs the legal relationship in which the agent deals with a third party on

philosophical feminism: Feminist theories of agency: Both feminist social and political philosophy and feminist ethics presuppose a theory of women’s agency—i.e., an account of their capacity for individualized choice and action. The question of women’s agency was salient for feminist philosophers because women’s identities took shape in settings that were…

William Gibson: Its prequel/sequel, Agency, was published in 2020.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the primary federal agency in charge of producing research that helps to improve the quality, safety, accessibility, affordability, and effectiveness of health care in the United States. The research sponsored and conducted by the Agency for

intelligence: South Korea: The agency, renamed the National Intelligence Service in 1999, collects and coordinates national security intelligence. The Defense Security Command of the Ministry of National Defense and the National Intelligence Service are responsible for the collection of national security intelligence, particularly with regard to the threat from North Korea. The…

agency, in law, the relationship that exists when one person or party (the principal) engages another (the agent) to act for him—e.g., to do his work, to sell his goods, to manage his business. The law of agency thus governs the legal relationship in which the agent deals with a third party on

agency shop, place of employment where union members pay union dues and other workers pay service fees to the union to cover the cost of collective bargaining. An agency shop agreement allows the employer to hire both union and nonunion workers without harming the trade union; the practice is

hierarchy: Conceptions of hierarchy: Agency theory, for example, focuses on the problems that accrue from the delegation of decision-making authority to an agent by a principal. Also at issue is the span of control—the number of subordinates directly supervised by a superior. A narrower span will render a direct…

financial agency theory, in organizational economics, a means of assessing the work being done for a principal (i.e., an employer) by an agent (i.e., an employee). While consistent with the concept of agency traditionally advanced by legal scholars and attorneys, the economic variants of agency

Michael Fassbender: Career: …TV in the spy drama The Agency (2024– ). Staying in the espionage genre, he costarred with Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag (2025), about married intelligence agents.

Earth Council Alliance: …to implementing the principles of Agenda 21, the Earth Council from 1992 to 1998 organized more than 80 national councils for sustainable development. In the early 21st century, Strong and American philanthropist Tommy Short created the Earth Council Alliance to facilitate the work of the national councils and of allied…

Maxwell McCombs: …resulted from that study, “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media,” appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1972 and is perhaps the most-cited article in the field of mass communication research. Since then there have been hundreds of studies of agenda setting, many of which were described in McCombs’s book,…

agenesis, in human physiology, failure of all or part of an organ to develop during embryonic growth. Many forms of agenesis are consistently lethal, as when the entire brain is absent (anencephaly), but agenesis of one of a paired organ may create little disruption of normal function. Agenesis of

Agenais, former province of France, of which Agen was the centre and to which the modern département of Lot-et-Garonne nearly corresponds. In ancient Gaul, Agenais was the country of the Nitiobriges, then a Gallo-Roman civitas, whose limits became those of the diocese of Agen. Having in general

agency, in law, the relationship that exists when one person or party (the principal) engages another (the agent) to act for him—e.g., to do his work, to sell his goods, to manage his business. The law of agency thus governs the legal relationship in which the agent deals with a third party on

James Bond, British literary and film character, a peerless spy, notorious womanizer, and masculine icon. Designated Agent 007 (always articulated as “double-oh-seven”) in the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, James Bond was the creation of the novelist Ian Fleming, who introduced the

marketing: Brokers and agents: Unlike merchant wholesalers, agent middlemen do not take legal ownership of the goods they sell; nor do they generally take physical possession of them. The three principal types of agent middlemen are manufacturers’ agents, selling agents, and purchasing agents. Manufacturers’ agents, who represent two or more manufacturers’ complementary…

Agent Orange, mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and destroying crops that might feed the enemy. The defoliant, sprayed

Russia: The revolution of 1905–06: …it only by infiltrating their agents into the revolutionary parties and particularly into the terrorist detachments of these parties. This use of double agents (or agents provocateurs, as they were often known) did much to demoralize both the revolutionaries and the police and to undermine the reputation of both with…

John le Carré: In 2019 le Carré released Agent Running in the Field, an espionage tale set in 2018 that incorporates such topical events as “Brexit” (the British withdrawal from the European Union). Silverview, reportedly his last novel, was published posthumously in 2021. It centres on a bookstore owner who gets caught up…