New Orleans, Battle of (April 24-25, 1862) Naval action in the American Civil War. A Union squadron of 43 ships led by David Farragut entered the Mississippi River below New Orleans and breached the chain cables stretched across the river as a defense. The 3,000 Confederate troops under Mansfield Lovell withdrew northward and the city fell. The Union army under Benjamin Butler entered the city on May 1 and began an occupation that lasted until the end of the war. The loss of New Orleans was a major blow to the Confederacy.
New Orleans jazz See Dixieland
New Realism Early 20th-century movement in metaphysics and episte¬ mology that opposed the idealism dominant in British and U.S. universi¬ ties. Early leaders included William James, Bertrand Russell, and G. E.
Moore, who adopted the term realism to signal their opposition to ideal¬ ism. In 1910 William Pepperel Montague, Ralph Barton Perry, and oth¬ ers signed an article entitled “The Program and First Platform of Six Realists,” and followed it with a cooperative volume, The New Realism (1912). In defending the independence of known things. New Realism affirmed that in cognition “the content of knowledge, that which lies in or before the mind when knowledge takes place, is numerically identical with the thing known” (a form of direct realism). To some realists, this epistemological monism seemed unable to give a satisfactory explanation of the mind’s proneness to error.
new religious movement (NRM) Any religion originating in recent centuries having characteristic traits including eclecticism and syn¬ cretism, a leader who claims extraordinary powers, and a “countercul¬ tural” aspect. Regarded as outside the mainstream of society, NRMs in the West are extremely diverse but include millennialist movements (e.g., the Jehovah's Witnesses), Westernized Hindu or Buddhist movements (e.g., the Hare Krishna movement), so-called “scientific” groups (e.g., Scientol¬ ogy), and nature religions (see Neo-Paganism). In the East they include China’s 19th-century Taiping movement (see Taiping rebellion) and present- day Falun Gong movement, Japan’s Tenrikyo and PL Kyodan, and Korea’s Ch'ondogyo and Unification Church. Some NRMs fade away or meet tragic ends; others, such as the Mormon church, eventually become accepted as mainstream.
New Republic, The Weekly journal of opinion, founded in 1914 by Willard Straight, with Herbert Croly as editor. Long one of the most influential liberal magazines in the U.S., it early reflected the progressive movement and sought reforms in U.S. government and society. Its popu¬ larity declined in the 1920s when liberalism was out of favour but revived in the 1930s. After initially opposing Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s admin¬ istration, it supported Roosevelt’s New Deal. After becoming editor in 1946, former U.S. vice president Henry Wallace moved the magazine fur¬ ther left until he was forced to resign. In the early 1980s the magazine began to display an array of commentary reflecting the resurgence of con¬ servatism in U.S. politics.
New River River, southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia, U.S. It is formed in North Carolina and flows north across Virginia into West Virginia, where it joins the Gauley River to form the Kanawha River. It is about 255 mi (410 km) long and is spanned by one of the longest steel-arch bridges in the world, the New River Gorge bridge near Fay¬ etteville, W.Va., whose main span is 1,700 ft (518 m).
New School University formerly New School for Social Research Private university in New York City. It was established in 1919 as an informal centre for adult education and soon became the first American university to specialize in continuing education. In 1934 it estab¬ lished a graduate faculty of political and social sciences, staffed mainly by refugee academics from Nazi Germany. It also includes a liberal arts college, a graduate school of management and urban policy, the Mannes College of Music, and the Parsons School of Design.
New Siberian Islands Island group, Arctic Ocean, northeastern Rus¬ sia, north of eastern Siberia. The islands divide the Laptev Sea from the East Siberian Sea. They are separated from the Siberian mainland by Dmitry Laptev Strait. With an area of about 14,500 sq mi (38,000 sq km), they are snow-covered for more than nine months of the year. Arctic fox, northern deer, lemming, and many species of birds inhabit the islands.
New South Wales State (pop., 2001: 6,609,304), southeastern Aus¬ tralia. Bounded by Queensland, the Pacific Ocean, Victoria, and South Aus¬ tralia, it has an area of 309,130 sq mi (800,640 sq km); the capital is Sydney. The dominant geographic feature is the Great Dividing Range. Inhabited from prehistoric times. New South Wales was claimed for Britain by Capt. James Cook in 1770. The colony included the entire continent except for Western Australia. The interior was explored throughout the 19th century and colonies were set up there, separate from New South Wales. In 1901 it became part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The state ceded the area of the Australian Capital Territory in 1911. New South Wales is the centre of commercial farming, industry, and culture in Australia.
New Spain, Viceroyalty of Former Spanish viceroyalty (1535— 1821), principally in North America. At various times it included what is now the southwestern U.S. (as well as Florida and parts of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico), Mexico, Central America north of Panama, much of the West Indies, and the Philippines. Mexico City was the seat of the gov-
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New Sweden ► New York City I 1353
ernment, which also had jurisdiction over Spain’s Caribbean possessions. The first viceroy sent Francisco Vazquez de Coronado on his northern expeditions. The viceroyalty succumbed to the coalition forged by Agustrn de Iturbide in 1821.
New Sweden Only Swedish colony in North America, on the Dela¬ ware River, extending from the site of present-day Trenton, N.J., U.S., to the mouth of the river. It was established by the New Sweden Co. led by Peter Minuit in 1638, when Fort Christina was built at what is now Wilm¬ ington, Del. It was captured by the Dutch in 1655 under Peter Stuyvesant. The Swedish colonists were allowed to keep their lands and continue their customs under Dutch rule.
New Testament Second of the two major divisions of the Christian Bible. Christians see the New Testament as the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament. It recounts the life and ministry of Jesus and inter¬ prets their meaning for the early church, focusing especially on the new covenant created between God and the followers of Jesus. There are 27 books in the New Testament: four Gospels, or stories of the life and teach¬ ings of Christ; the Acts of the Apostles, a historical narrative of the first years of the Christian church; 21 epistles, or letters of advice and instruc¬ tion to early Christians; and the Book of Revelation, a description of the coming apocalypse. Most were written in the later 1st century ad, though none can be dated precisely. Only two authors are known for certain: St. Paul, credited with 13 epistles; and St. Luke, writer of the third gospel and the Book of Acts. Attributions of other authors range from highly likely (for the other three gospels) to completely unknown (for the Epistle to the Hebrews). These documents circulated among the early churches and were used as preaching and teaching sources. The earliest known list of the current New Testament canon dates from ad 367 in a work by St. Athanasius. A church council of 382 gave final approval to the list.