Arden, John (b. Oct. 26, 1930, Barnsley, Yorkshire, Eng.) British playwright. He studied architecture at Cambridge and the Edinburgh College of Art. His plays mix poetry and songs with colloquial speech in a boldly theatrical manner and involve strong conflicts purposely left unre¬ solved. Arden’s works include All Fall Down (1955), Serjeant Mus- grave’s Dance (1959), The Work- house Donkey (1963), Vandaleur’s Folly (1978), and the radio series Whose Is the Kingdom? (1988).
"Summer," painting on canvas by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1563; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
BY COURTESY OF THE KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA; PHOTOGRAPH, ERWIN MEYER
Ardennes \ar-'den\ or Forest of Ardennes Wooded plateau region, northwestern Europe. It covers over 3,860 sq mi (10,000 sq km) and
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includes parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Meuse River valley of France; its average height is about 1,600 ft (488 m). Though half of it is covered with forests, the soil is generally unfertile and supports only heath. It is located in the middle of the heavily populated triangle of Paris, Brussels, and Cologne. During World Wars I and II, the area was the scene of severe fighting in 1914, 1918, and 1944 (see Battle of the Bulge).
Ardhanarisvara V.ar-do-na-'resh-vo-roX Composite male-female fig¬ ure of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati. In many Indian and S.East Asian sculptures, the right half is male and the left female. The figure symbolizes the inseparability of male and female principles.
Ards District (pop., 2001: 73,244), Northern Ireland. Formerly part of County Down, Ards was established as a district in 1973. Much of its land is devoted to crops and pasture. Newtownards, settled c. 1608 by Scots, is its administrative seat and manufacturing centre. Donaghadee is a popular resort town.
area See length, area, and volume
Arecibo \,ar-3-'se-bo\ Observatory Astronomical observatory near Arecibo, P.R., site of the world’s largest single-unit radio telescope (as opposed to multiple telescope interferometers such as the Very Large Array). The telescope dish, 1,000 ft (300 m) across, is built into a valley; celestial sources are tracked across the sky by moving secondary struc¬ tures suspended about 500 ft (150 m) above the dish. The observatory has produced detailed radar maps of the surface of Venus and near-Earth aster¬ oids (see Earth-crossing asteroid), made detailed studies of Earth’s iono¬ sphere, and made major contributions to studies of pulsars and hydrogen gas in GALAXIES.
arena stage See theater-in-the-round
Arendt \a-'rent\, Hannah (b. Oct. 14, 1906, Hannover, Ger.—d. Dec. 4, 1975, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German-bom U.S. political philosopher.
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
100 I Areopagus ► Argentina
She studied philosophy at the Universities of Marburg, Freiburg, and Heidelberg, receiving a doctorate from the latter in 1928. While at Mar¬ burg she began a romantic relationship with her teacher Martin Heidegger. Following the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, Arendt, who was Jew¬ ish, fled to Paris, where she became a social worker, and then to New York City in 1941. Her major work, Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), traced totalitarianism to 19th-century anti-Semitism, imperialism, and the dis¬ integration of the traditional nation-state. Her highly controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) argued that the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was not inwardly wicked or depraved but merely “thoughtless”; his role in the extermination of the Jews thus epitomized the fearsome “banality of evil” that had swept across Europe at the time. Resuming contact with Heidegger in 1950, she claimed that his involvement with the Nazis had been the “mistake” of a great philosopher. She taught at the University of Chicago (1963-67) and thereafter at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Areopagus \,ar-e-'a-p9-g3s\ Supreme tribunal of ancient Athens. It was named for the Areopagus (“Ares’ Hill”), where it met. It began as the king’s council; by Draco’s code of law (c. 621 bc) it consisted of former archons, but Solon (594) opened candidacy to any citizen. It had broad judicial powers. Its prestige fluctuated from the mid 6th to the mid 4th century bc, after which its power revived and continued under Roman domination, when it reacquired extensive administrative duties.
Arequipa \,a-ra-'ke-pa\ City (pop., 1998 est.: 710,103), southern Peru. Located in the Andes Mountains at an elevation of 7,557 ft (2,303 m) at the foot of Misti Volcano (19,098 ft [5,821 m]), it has been subject to earthquakes, usually associated with volcanic activity, and was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1868. In the Inca empire, Arequipa was an important point on the route from Cuzco to the seacoast. Modern Are¬ quipa is the commercial centre of southern Peru.
Ares \'ar-ez\ Greek god of war. Unlike his Roman counterpart, Mars, his worship was not extensive. From the time of Homer, he was one of the Olympian deities, the son of Zeus and Hera, but disliked by the other gods.
His worship occurred largely in northern Greece. He was associated from early times with Aphrodite, occasionally portrayed as his legiti¬ mate wife and at other times his lover. He was accompanied in battle by his sister Eris (strife) and by two of his children by Aphrodite, Phobos and Deimos (Panic and Rout).
Aretino \,a-ra-'te-no\, Pietro (b.
April 20, 1492, Arezzo, Republic of Florence [Italy]—d. Oct. 21, 1556,
Venice) Italian poet, prose writer, and dramatist. He was celebrated throughout Europe in his time for his bold and insolent literary attacks on the powerful. His fiery letters and dialogues are of great biographical and topical interest. His dramas, which are relatively free of venom¬ ous assaults, include five comedies and a tragedy, Orazia (1546), per¬ haps the best Italian tragedy of the 16th century.
Arevalo \,a-ra-'ba-lo\ (Berme- jo), Juan Jose (b. Sept. 10, 1904, Taxisco, Guat.—d. Oct. 6, 1990, Guatemala City) President of Guatemala (1945-51). Soon after earning his doctorate, he went to Argentina, where he held various academic posi¬ tions. After the overthrow of the Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, he was elected president, receiving 85 percent of the vote. He established free¬ dom of speech and of the press, and his administration inaugurated a social security system, a labour code, and important education and health pro¬ grams. His policies favoured urban and agricultural workers and the indig¬ enous population. He stepped down voluntarily at the end of his term. A military coup prevented him from running again in 1963.
Argentina officially Argentine Republic Country, southern South America. Area: 1,073,400 sq mi (2,780,092 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 38,592,000. Capitaclass="underline" Buenos Aires. The people are mostly of Euro-
Catholic [official]; also Protestant); also Islam, Judaism. Currency: Argen¬ tine peso. Argentina can be divided into four general regions: the North, the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Andes Mountains. The subtropical plains in the northeast are divided by the Parana River into Mesopotamia to the east and Gran Chaco to the west and north. The Pampas, south and west of the Parana, is one of the world’s most productive agricultural areas and the country’s most populous region. Patagonia lies south of the Colorado River. The Argentine Andes include the continent’s highest peak, Mount Aconcagua. Argentina’s hydrology is dominated by rivers that include the Parana, Uruguay, and Pilcomayo, which drain into the Rio de la Plata. Argentina has a developing economy based largely on manufacturing and agriculture; it is Latin America’s largest exporter of beef and beef prod¬ ucts. It is a republic with two legislative houses; the head of state and government is the president. Little is known of the indigenous population before the Europeans’ arrival. The area was explored for Spain by Sebas¬ tian Cabot beginning in 1526; by 1580 Asuncion, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires had been settled. Early in the 17th century it was attached to the Viceroyalty of Peru, but in 1776 it was included with regions of modem Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, whose capital was Buenos Aires. With the establishment of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata in 1816, Argentina achieved its indepen¬ dence from Spain, but its boundaries were not set until the early 20th cen¬ tury. In 1943 the government was overthrown by the military; Col. Juan Peron took control in 1946. He in turn was overthrown in 1955. He returned in 1973 after two decades of turmoil. His third wife, Isabel,