military technology: Mechanical artillery: …in 399 bce directed his engineers to construct military engines in preparation for war with Carthage. Dionysius’s engineers surely drew on existing practice. The earliest of the Greek engines was the gastrophetes, or “belly shooter.” In effect a large crossbow, it received its name because the user braced the stock…

J.G. Ballard: His short-story collection War Fever (1990) contains humorously nihilistic meditations on such topics as compulsory sex and the oblivious attitudes of a media-saturated society.

typhus: Causes, symptoms, & Treatment: Epidemic typhus has also been called camp fever, jail fever, and war fever, names that suggest overcrowding, poor sanitation, and generally unhygienic living conditions. It is caused by the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii and is conveyed from person to person by the body louse, Pediculus humanus…

war finance, fiscal and monetary methods that are used in meeting the costs of war, including taxation, compulsory loans, voluntary domestic loans, foreign loans, and the creation of money. War finance is a branch of defense economics. (Read Milton Friedman’s Britannica entry on money.) Government

War Hawk, in U.S. history, any of the expansionists primarily composed of young Southerners and Westerners elected to the U.S. Congress in 1810, whose territorial ambitions in the Northwest and Florida inspired them to agitate for war with Great Britain. The War Hawks, who included such future

Steven Spielberg: The 2010s and beyond: …2011 Spielberg helmed another adaptation, War Horse. The drama was based on a popular Broadway play, which itself was developed from a 1982 children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo. The story opens shortly before the start of World War I, when a horse named Joey is sold to a cavalry officer…

Marianne Elliott: …Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 children’s novel War Horse, which she codirected with Tom Morris. The production, which featured life-sized horse puppets, premiered in October 2007 at the NT’s South Bank location, and in 2008 Elliott earned one of the play’s six Laurence Olivier nominations. In March 2009 War Horse transferred to…

Eavan Boland: …published outside Ireland, reprinted both The War Horse (1975), which contains controlled, conventionally styled poems about suburban life and political tension, and In Her Own Image (1980), featuring terse poetic narratives about women. The poems of Night Feed (1982) link her spiritual maturation to her new state of motherhood. The…

Sydney Pollack: Early work in television and film: …in his first feature film, War Hunt (1962). The Korean War drama featured Robert Redford, and Pollack would later collaborate with Redford on a number of notable movies.

Sir William Fox: …defended his government’s actions in The War in New Zealand (1860; rev. ed., 1866). Although he acted as premier (1869–72), the colonial treasurer, Julius Vogel, held the real power. In his parliamentary career, Fox was most effective as head of the opposition rather than in leading the government. He resigned…

Russia: War and the fall of the monarchy: Unofficial War Industry Committees were established in major cities and some provinces to bring together representatives of local authorities, cooperatives, merchants, industrialists, and workers for mutual consultation on economic priorities. These were supplemented in the summer of 1915 by government-sponsored Special Councils in the fields of…

Elmer Davis: Appointed to head the Office of War Information in 1942, Davis won respect for his handling of official news and propaganda, although his liberal stance, especially his opposition to military censorship, generated controversy. In 1945 he resumed his career as a news broadcaster with the American Broadcasting Company until…

Alain Resnais: …political figures, however, as in La Guerre est finie (1966; “The War Is Over”), his scrupulosity and tragic humanism are so much in evidence that his work transcends partisan feelings.

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act, (June 25, 1943), measure enacted by the U.S. Congress, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s veto, giving the president power to seize and operate privately owned war plants when an actual or threatened strike or lockout interfered with war production. Subsequent

Franklin J. Schaffner: Schaffner next directed The War Lord (1965), a medieval drama starring Charlton Heston and Richard Boone. Less popular was The Double Man (1967), an espionage drama with Yul Brynner in a dual role as an American and an East German spy.

Brad Pitt: Inglourious Basterds and Moneyball: …portrayed a four-star general in War Machine, a military satire that was released on Netflix.

mask: Therapeutic uses: A war mask will have a malevolent expression or hideously fantastic features to instill fear in the enemy. The ancient Greeks and Romans used battle shields with grotesque masks (such as Gorgon masks) or attached terrifying masks to their armour, as did Chinese warriors. Grimacing menpō,…

Canada: Quebec separatism: …intervention, prompting enactment of the War Measures Act, which suspended the usual civil liberties. Subsequently some 500 people were arrested, and troops were moved into Quebec. The Canadian public generally approved of the act, but few convictions followed, except of those accused of the murder of Laporte.

David Lloyd George: Later years and assessment: …himself thereafter to writing his War Memoirs (1933–36) and The Truth About the Peace Treaties (1938). In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George declined, ostensibly on grounds of age and health. Just two months before his death, he was elevated to the peerage…

20th-century international relations: Allied economic management: …volunteers from business, while the Office of War Mobilization (May 1943) under James F. Byrnes served less as a dictator than an umpire in matters involving labor, business, and the military.

War of Attrition, inconclusive war (1969–70) chiefly between Egypt and Israel. The conflict, launched by Egypt, was meant to wear down Israel by means of a long engagement and so provide Egypt with the opportunity to dislodge Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had seized from

Mario Vargas Llosa: Literary works and political career: …del fin del mundo (1981; The War of the End of the World), an account of the 19th-century political conflicts in Brazil, became a best seller in Spanish-speaking countries. Three of his plays—La señorita de Tacna (1981; The Young Lady of Tacna), Kathie y el hipopotamo (1983; Kathie and the…

Danny DeVito: Career: …such as the satirical comedy The War of the Roses (1989), the crime biopic Hoffa (1992), and the dark comedy Throw Momma from the Train (1987). In 1992 DeVito, along with Perlman and American producer Michael Shamberg, cofounded the production company Jersey Films, which produced movies such as the fantasy…

Jorge Amado: …O sumiço da santa (1993; The War of the Saints). Amado published his memoirs, Navegaçãu de cabotagem (“Coastal Navigation”), in 1992.

The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, a Dead Sea Scroll, and one of the most important documents of the Essene sect of Jews that established a community at Qumrān in the Judaean desert during the first half of the 2nd century bc. The Essenes thought themselves to be the holy

Orson Welles: Theater and radio in the 1930s: Wells’s The War of the Worlds; the performance on October 30, using the format of a simulated news broadcast (fake news) narrated by Welles, announced an attack on New Jersey by invaders from Mars.

Tom Cruise: A-list star of the 1990s and 2000s: He reteamed with Spielberg on War of the Worlds (2005), a visually impressive adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel of the same name. In 2008 Cruise earned laughs as an abrasive movie executive in the comedy Tropic Thunder, and he portrayed the historical figure Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a German…

The War of the Worlds, science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, first published serially by Pearson’s Magazine in the U.K. and by The Cosmopolitan magazine in the U.S. in 1897. The novel details a catastrophic conflict between humans and extraterrestrial “Martians.” It is considered a landmark work of

George Pal: …Collide (1951), and Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds (1953). The films all won Oscars for special effects, with Pal’s production company receiving the award for Destination Moon. Accepting a deal to produce and design films for MGM, Pal made his feature-film directing debut with tom thumb (1958), a…

Alejo Carpentier: …volume Guerra del tiempo (1958; War of Time). Carpentier’s second novel, and the first to enjoy wide acclaim, was El reino de este mundo (1950; The Kingdom of This World); it is about the Haitian revolution. In the prologue to this work, Carpentier expounds on magic realism, which he defines…

War on Drugs, the effort in the United States since the 1970s to combat illegal drug use by greatly increasing penalties, enforcement, and incarceration for drug offenders. The War on Drugs began in June 1971 when U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one” and

Ronan Farrow: Farrow published War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence (2018), which draws on his State Department experience. The best-selling Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and Conspiracy to Protect Predators (2019) details his investigative work for NBC and The New Yorker on…

War on Poverty, expansive social welfare legislation introduced in the 1960s by the administration of U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson and intended to help end poverty in the United States. It was part of a larger legislative reform program, known as the Great Society, that Johnson hoped would make the

war on terrorism, term used to describe the American-led global counterterrorism campaign launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In its scope, expenditure, and impact on international relations, the war on terrorism was comparable to the Cold War; it was intended to

Patti LuPone: …a prisoner seeking parole, and War Paint (2017), a musical about rival cosmetic magnates Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. LuPone later appeared in the London production of Company (2018–19), a revival of a Stephen Sondheim musical in which the gender of most of the characters was switched. For her performance,…

James Nachtwey: War Photographer (2001) is a documentary film about Nachtwey and his work.

Black Sabbath: Success: …“Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” and “War Pigs” became metal classics. By the end of the 1970s they had sold millions of records and had become the standard by which virtually every heavy metal band had to measure itself.

War Powers Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress on November 7, 1973, over the veto of Pres. Richard Nixon. The joint measure was called the War Powers Resolution, though the title of the Senate-approved bill, War Powers Act, became widely used. The act sought to restrain the president’s ability to

Anna Ella Carroll: In The War Powers of the General Government (1861) and The Relation of the National Government to the Revolted Citizens Defined (1862), both published at her own expense, Carroll outlined a constitutional theory under which the secession of Southern states and the formation of the Confederacy…

20th-century international relations: Allied economic management: In January 1942 the War Production Board emerged, staffed with “dollar-a-year” volunteers from business, while the Office of War Mobilization (May 1943) under James F. Byrnes served less as a dictator than an umpire in matters involving labor, business, and the military.

War Refugee Board (WRB), United States agency established January 22, 1944, to attempt to rescue victims of the Nazis—mainly Jews—from death in German-occupied Europe. The board began its work after the Nazis had already killed millions in concentration and extermination camps. A late start, a lack

Nisei: …military pressure to establish the War Relocation Authority by executive order (March 18, 1942), and this agency administered the mass evacuation mandated by Executive Order 9066.

reparations, a levy on a defeated country forcing it to pay some of the war costs of the winning countries. Reparations were levied on the Central Powers after World War I to compensate the Allies for some of their war costs. They were meant to replace war indemnities which had been levied after

Benjamin Britten: …largest choral work is the War Requiem (1962) for choir and orchestra, based on the Latin requiem mass text and the poems of Wilfred Owen, who was killed in World War I. Other choral works include the Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942; text by Auden), Ceremony of Carols (1942), Rejoice…

War Resisters’ International (WRI), an international secular pacifist organization with headquarters in London and more than 80 associates in 40 countries. War Resisters’ International (WRI) was founded in 1921. As an antimilitarist organization, it adopted a declaration in its founding year that

James Carville: Academy Award-nominated documentary film The War Room (1993) and acted in television programs and movies, often as a fictionalized version of himself—as in the HBO series K Street (2003)—but occasionally in other roles in films such as The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and The Assassination of Jesse James…

The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, a Dead Sea Scroll, and one of the most important documents of the Essene sect of Jews that established a community at Qumrān in the Judaean desert during the first half of the 2nd century bc. The Essenes thought themselves to be the holy

The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, a Dead Sea Scroll, and one of the most important documents of the Essene sect of Jews that established a community at Qumrān in the Judaean desert during the first half of the 2nd century bc. The Essenes thought themselves to be the holy

Howard Nemerov: …Inside the Onion (1984), and War Stories (1987). As a social critic, he produced powerfully satiric poems.

War is one of the most common themes in literature. Indeed, some of the earliest great literary works are epics recounting the events or aftermath of a war. The Iliad, traditionally said to have been composed by the Greek poet Homer in the 8th century bce, is an epic poem about the Trojan War.

Ben Kingsley: Later works: …has lost a friend in War Story (2014) and Hungarian leader Miklós Horthy in the World War II drama Walking with the Enemy (2013). In 2014 Kingsley voiced a scrofulous cross-dressing pest exterminator in the animated adventure The Boxtrolls and joined the ensemble of Ridley Scott’s biblical epic Exodus: Gods…

Arundhati Roy: Nonfiction works: …Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), War Talk (2003), Public Power in the Age of Empire (2004), Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (2009), Broken Republic: Three Essays (2011), and Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014). My Seditious Heart (2019) is a collection of her nonfiction spanning 20 years.

Ha Jin: Literary works: …the latter award again for War Trash (2004), becoming the third writer (after Philip Roth and John Edgar Wideman) to twice receive that honor. War Trash recounts the struggles of a Chinese soldier in a prisoner-of-war camp during the Korean War.

Robert De Niro: Comedies and later work: …starred in the family dramedy The War with Grandpa. Two years later he had a supporting role in Russell’s Amsterdam, a satire about a fascist plot to overthrow the U.S. government in the 1930s.

Svetlana Alexievich: …voyny ne zhenskoe litso (War’s Unwomanly Face; also translated as The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II), an investigative study that chronicled the lives of Soviet women during World War II, followed that same year by Poslednie svideteli (Last Witnesses: An Oral…

history of Europe: War: …in the random nature of operations and the way in which armies, disciplined only on the battlefield, lived off the land. Casualties in battle were not the prime factor. In the warfare of the 17th and 18th centuries, mortal sickness in the armies exceeded death in action in the proportion…

United States Army: Origins in the American Revolution and early republic: …and in 1789 the civilian Department of War was established to administer the military forces. One of the first tasks Washington assigned to the secretary of war, Maj. Gen. Henry Knox, was to prepare legislation for a military policy as outlined in his Sentiments. The principal element of this proposed…

collective violence: War: …a by-product of the so-called fog of war.

just war, notion that the resort to armed force (jus ad bellum) is justified under certain conditions; also, the notion that the use of such force (jus in bello) should be limited in certain ways. Just war is a Western concept and should be distinguished from the Islamic concept of jihad (Arabic:

law of war, that part of international law dealing with the inception, conduct, and termination of warfare. Its aim is to limit the suffering caused to combatants and, more particularly, to those who may be described as the victims of war—that is, noncombatant civilians and those no longer able to

prisoner of war (POW), any person captured or interned by a belligerent power during war. In the strictest sense it is applied only to members of regularly organized armed forces, but by broader definition it has also included guerrillas, civilians who take up arms against an enemy openly, or

military technology, range of weapons, equipment, structures, and vehicles used specifically for the purpose of warfare. It includes the knowledge required to construct such technology, to employ it in combat, and to repair and replenish it. The technology of war may be divided into five

Henri Rousseau: Later paintings and recognition of Henri Rousseau: …in connection with his painting The War (1894), exhibited at the 1894 Salon des Indépendants, which demonstrated a striking use of allegory, convincing some viewers that Rousseau was much more than a minor landscapist. This work marked the beginning of the recognition of Rousseau as a serious painter.

Weimar Republic: The Treaty of Versailles: …the Allies inserted the famous war-guilt clause, article 231:

excess-profits tax: One, known as the war-profits principle, is designed to recapture wartime increases in income over normal peacetime profits of the taxpayer. The other, identified as the high-profits principle, is based on income in excess of some statutory rate of return on invested capital.

Warabi, city, Saitama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies on the alluvial plain of the Ara River. An early post town, it has long been a centre of cotton fabric manufacture. The city was linked to a major railway in 1899, and urbanization developed after World War II. Low rice paddies have

Larsa: …Kutur-Mabuk, who installed his son Warad-Sin (1834–23) as king. This act apparently caused little disruption in the economic life of Larsa, and this was in fact a most prosperous period, as many thousands of business documents attest. Agriculture and stock breeding flourished; much attention was given to irrigation; and long-distance…

Warangal, city, northeastern Telangana state, southern India. It lies in an upland region, about 70 miles (110 km) northeast of Hyderabad. Warangal was the ancient capital of the Kakatiyas, an Andhra dynasty that flourished in the 12th century ce. Warangal’s fort, lying southeast of the present-day

Warao, nomadic South American Indians speaking a language of the Macro-Chibchan group and, in modern times, inhabiting the swampy Orinoco River delta in Venezuela and areas eastward to the Pomeroon River of Guyana. Some Warao also live in Suriname. The tribe was estimated to number about 20,000 in

Muhammad: Biography according to the Islamic tradition: …by Khadījah and her cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a learned Christian who confirms Muhammad’s prophetic status. Muhammad continues to receive revelations but for three years limits himself to speaking about them in private. When God finally commands him to take up public preaching, he initially encounters no opposition. However, after…

Waray-Waray, any member of a large ethnolinguistic group of the Philippines, living on Samar, eastern Leyte, and Biliran islands. Numbering roughly 4.2 million in the early 21st century, they speak a Visayan (Bisayan) language of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family. Most Waray-Waray are

Waray-Waray, any member of a large ethnolinguistic group of the Philippines, living on Samar, eastern Leyte, and Biliran islands. Numbering roughly 4.2 million in the early 21st century, they speak a Visayan (Bisayan) language of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family. Most Waray-Waray are

Austronesian languages: Major languages: Hiligaynon, Bicol, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan of the Philippines; Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Minangkabau, the Batak languages, Acehnese, Balinese, and Buginese of western Indonesia; and

maqām: …God; (2) the maqām of waraʿ (fear of the Lord), which is not fear of hellfire but rather the dread of being veiled eternally from God; (3) the maqām of zuhd (renunciation, or detachment), which means that the person is devoid of possessions and his heart is without acquisitiveness; (4)…

Perkin Warbeck was an impostor and pretender to the throne of the first Tudor king of England, Henry VII. Vain, foolish, and incompetent, he was used by Henry’s Yorkist enemies in England and on the European continent in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. The son of a local

warble fly, (family Oestridae), any member of a family of insects in the fly order, Diptera, sometimes classified in the family Hypodermatidae. The warble, or bot, flies Hypoderma lineatum and H. bovis are large, heavy, and beelike. The females deposit their eggs on the legs of cattle. The larvae

warbler, any of various species of small songbirds belonging predominantly to the Sylviidae (sometimes considered a subfamily, Sylviinae, of the family Muscicapidae), Parulidae, and Peucedramidae families of the order Passeriformes. Warblers are small, active insect eaters found in gardens,

warbonnet, eagle-feather headdress worn by some members of the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains as indicators of accomplishment. Warbonnets are typically worn in ceremonial situations but were occasionally worn into battle historically. Warbonnets come in several different styles. Some trail

Warburg family, a family whose members were eminent in banking, philanthropy, and scholarship. Presumably of Italian origin, they settled in the German town of Warburgum (from which the family derived its name) in 1559. Subsequently, branches settled in Scandinavia, England, and the United States.

American Ballet: …1934 by Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg, with George Balanchine as artistic director. Its initial performances were held in 1934 in Hartford, Conn., U.S. In 1935 it became the resident ballet company for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, whose disapproval of Balanchine’s unconventional choreography caused the ballet company…

Jewish Museum: …the museum moved to the Felix Warburg mansion (see Warburg family), located on New York City’s “Museum Mile” on Fifth Avenue. The Jewish Museum is one of the foremost museums of its kind. Its permanent collection contains tens of thousands of unique objects, ranging from ancient cultural artifacts to artwork…

Warburg family: James Paul Warburg (1896–1969), son of Paul M., was a banker and economist, member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s original “brain trust,” and author of several books.

Otto Warburg was a German biochemist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his research on cellular respiration. After earning doctorates in chemistry at the University of Berlin (1906) and in medicine at Heidelberg (1911), Warburg became a prominent figure in the

Otto Warburg was a German biochemist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his research on cellular respiration. After earning doctorates in chemistry at the University of Berlin (1906) and in medicine at Heidelberg (1911), Warburg became a prominent figure in the

Otto Warburg was a German biochemist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his research on cellular respiration. After earning doctorates in chemistry at the University of Berlin (1906) and in medicine at Heidelberg (1911), Warburg became a prominent figure in the

William Warburton was an Anglican bishop of Gloucester, literary critic, and controversialist. Ordained priest in 1727, Warburton was appointed to the parish of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, the following year. During his 18 years at Brant Broughton, Warburton wrote The Alliance Between Church and

World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), cooperative international organization of Congregational, United, and Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Originally known as the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational), the group was formed in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1970 by

Latin American architecture: Brazil: …Paulo by the Russian émigré Gregori Warchavchik. His house on Rua Santa Cruz (1927–28) is a stark composition of plain white cubic forms whose lines are softened by the extensive use of tropical plants. Warchavchik wrote in his Manifesto of Functional Architecture (1925), “Down with absurd decoration and up with…

World of Warcraft: …led to a cinematic adaptation, Warcraft (2016), which expounded upon the mythology of Azeroth.

Activision Blizzard, Inc.: best known for the Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft franchises and for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft. At the conclusion of the merger, in which Activision was the senior partner, Vivendi purchased 52 percent of the stock in the newly formed Activision Blizzard. Both Activision and

castle: Later, one or more baileys or wards (grounds between encircling walls) were enclosed at the foot of the mound. During the 11th century this type of private fortress, known as the “motte [mound] and bailey” castle, spread throughout western Europe.

lock: Early history.: The Romans invented wards—i.e., projections around the keyhole, inside the lock, which prevent the key from being rotated unless the flat face of the key (its bit) has slots cut in it in such a fashion that the projections pass through the slots. For centuries locks depended on…

Mary Ellen Mark: The resulting images, published in Ward 81 (1979), illustrate Mark’s attempts to record the human condition with both compassion and objectivity.

iceberg: Arctic icebergs: …islands used to be the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf on Canada’s Ellesmere Island near northwestern Greenland, but the ice shelf has been retreating as ice islands and bergs continue to calve from it. (The ice shelf is breaking into pieces faster than new ice can be formed.) Since the beginning…

Ward Number Six, short story by Anton Chekhov, published in Russian in 1892 as “Palata No. 6.” The story is set in a provincial mental asylum and explores the philosophical conflict between Ivan Gromov, a patient, and Andrey Ragin, the director of the asylum. Gromov denounces the injustice he sees

disparate impact: Evolution of disparate impact theory: In Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc. v. Atonio (1989), the Supreme Court imposed significant limitations on the theory of disparate impact. The court switched the burden of proof to plaintiffs, requiring that they demonstrate that practices by employers that cause disparate impacts are not business necessities.…

taxidermy: …was superseded by that of Ward’s Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, N.Y., where a group of young enthusiasts, notably Carl Akeley (q.v.), devoted themselves to the perfection of taxidermic methods. The techniques for constructing and sculpting anatomically correct manikins of clay and plaster that were developed at Ward’s remain the…

Montgomery Ward was a U.S. merchant who introduced the mail-order method of selling general merchandise and who founded the great mail-order house of Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc. In 1859 Ward became a salesman in a general store in St. Joseph, Mich., for $6 a month and board, and later he was

Ann Radcliffe was the most representative of English Gothic novelists. She was a pioneer in developing a literature of terror, and her influential novels stand apart in their ability to infuse scenes of terror and suspense with Romantic sensibility. Ann Ward’s father was in trade, and the family

All-Star Game: Arch Ward, a Chicago Tribune sports editor, is credited with promoting the first All-Star Game, which was held in Chicago in 1933 in conjunction with the Century of Progress Exposition. The All-Star Game is held each July; two annual games were played from 1959 to…