sarsaparilla X.sas-ps-'ri-bV Aromatic flavouring agent originally made from the dried roots of several tropical smilax vines. Native to the south¬ ern and western coasts of Mexico to Peru, the plants are large, perennial, climbing or trailing vines with short, thick, underground stems that pro¬ duce many prickly, angular, aboveground stems supported by tendrils. Once a popular tonic, sarsaparilla now is blended with wintergreen and other flavours and used in root beer and other carbonated beverages, or to flavour and mask the taste of medicines. In North America, the strongly aromatic roots of the wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) and false, or bristly, sarsaparilla (A. hispida ), of the ginseng family, are sometimes sub¬ stituted for true sarsaparilla.
Sarto, Andrea del See Andrea del Sarto
Sartre VsartrA, Jean-Paul (b. June 21, 1905, Paris, France—d. April 15, 1980, Paris) French philosopher, novelist, and playwright, the fore¬ most exponent of existentialism. He studied at the Sorbonne, where he met Simone de Beauvoir, who became his lifelong companion and intellec¬ tual collaborator. His first novel,
Nausea (1938), narrates the feeling of revulsion that a young man expe¬ riences when confronted with the contingency of existence. Sartre used the phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl (see phenomenology) with great skill in three successive publications: Imagination: A Psy¬ chological Critique (1936), Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1939), and The Psychology of Imagination (1940). In Being and Nothingness (1943), he places human conscious¬ ness, or nothingness ( neant ), in opposition to being, or thingness {etre)\ consciousness is nonmatter and thus escapes all determinism. In his postwar treatise Existentialism and Humanism (1946) he depicts this radi¬ cal freedom as carrying with it a responsibility for the welfare of others. In the 1940s and ’50s he wrote many critically acclaimed plays— including The Flies (1943), No Exit (1946), and The Condemned ofAltona (1959)—the study Jean Genet (1952), and numerous articles for Les Temps Modernes, the monthly review that he and de Beauvoir founded and edited. A central figure of the French left after the war, he was an out¬ spoken admirer of the Soviet Union—though not a member of the French Communist Party—until the crushing of the Hungarian uprising by Soviet tanks in 1956, which he condemned. His Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960) faults Marxism for failing to adapt itself to the concrete circum¬ stances of particular societies and for not respecting individual freedom. His final works include an autobiography, The Words (1963), and Flau¬ bert (4 vol., 1971-72), a lengthy study of the author. He declined the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Sarvastivada \s3r-,vas-ti-'va-d9\ One of the 18 schools of Hinayana Buddhism that developed during the first four or five centuries after the Buddha’s death. The name literally means the teaching that everything exists, which relates to the notion that the past, present, and future all exist. The Sarvastivada school was particularly influential in northwest¬ ern India and portions of Southeast Asia.
Sarnoff, 1971
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
Jean-Paul Sartre, photograph by Gisele Freund, 1968.
GISELE FREUND
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1688 I Sasanian dynasty ► satire
Sasanian dynasty or Sassanian \sa-'sa-ne-on\ dynasty Persian dynasty (ad 224-651). Founded by Ardashlr I (r. ad 224-241) and named for his ancestor Sasan (c. 1st century ad), it replaced the Parthian empire (see Parthia). Its capital was Ctesiphon. The dynasty battled the Roman Republic and Empire and its successor the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Kushans and Hephthalites in the east throughout much of its exist¬ ence. In the 3rd century its empire stretched from Sogdiana and Georgia to northern Arabia, and from the Indus River to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Traditions of the Achaemenian dynasty were revived, Zoroastrian¬ ism was reestablished as the state religion, and art and architecture expe¬ rienced a renaissance. Its important rulers included Shapur I (d. 272), Shapur II (309-379), Khosrow I, and Khosrow II. The Sasanids were the last native Persian dynasty before the Arab conquest of the region in the late 7th century.
Saskatchewan \sas-'ka-ch9-,wan\ Province (pop., 2000: 978,933), western Canada. It is bounded to the north by the Northwest Territories, to the east by Manitoba, to the south by the U.S. state of Montana, and to the west by Alberta. The capital of Saskatchewan is Regina. A plains region, with prairie to the south and wooded country to the north, it sup¬ ports rich and varied wildlife. The Cree Indians inhabited the region for some 5,000 years before it was claimed by the Hudson's Bay Co., which controlled the area from 1670 until it surrendered the land to the British in 1868. It was part of Rupert’s Land (the territories granted to the Hud¬ son’s Bay Co.) until 1869, and in 1870 it became part of the Dominion of Canada. From 1882 the extension of the railroad brought large num¬ bers of European settlers. The province was created in 1905. Its economy is based on oil, gas, and potash production, grains, and livestock. The largest city is Saskatoon.
Saskatchewan, University of Canadian public university in Saska¬ toon, founded in 1907. It has colleges of arts and sciences, graduate stud¬ ies, agriculture, veterinary medicine, engineering, law, medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, commerce, education, and physical educa¬ tion.
Saskatchewan River River, southwestern and southern central Canada. The largest river system of Alberta and Saskatchewan, it rises in the Canadian Rockies as the North and South Saskatchewan rivers, which are 800 mi (1,287 km) and 865 mi (1,392 km) long, respectively. The combined streams continue east 340 mi (550 km) to enter Lake Winnipeg. Once important as a fur-trading route, it now provides hydroelectric power and irrigation.
Saskatoon \,sas-k9-'tun\ City (pop., 2001: 196,811), south-central Saskatchewan, Canada. It was founded on the Saskatchewan River in 1883 as the proposed capital of a temperance colony. It grew rapidly follow¬ ing the arrival of the railroad in 1890 and the town’s amalgamation with two adjoining settlements in 1906. Saskatchewan’s largest city, it is a cul¬ tural and educational centre and a major transportation hub and distribu¬ tion centre. Its educational institutions include the University of Saskatchewan (founded 1907).
Sasquatch See Bigfoot
sassafras Vsa-s3-,fras\ North American tree ( Sassafras albidum) of the laurel family. The aromatic leaf, bark, and root are used as a flavouring, as a traditional home medicine, and as a tea. The aromatic roots yield about 2% oil of sassafras, once the characteristic ingredient of root beer. The tree is native to sandy soils from Maine to Ontario and Iowa and south to Florida and Texas. It is usually small but may attain a height of 65 ft (20 m) or more. It has furrowed bark, bright green twigs, small clusters of yellow flowers followed by dark blue berries, and three distinctive forms of leaves, often on the same twig: three-lobed, two-lobed (mitten¬ shaped), and entire.
Sassandra River \s9-'san-dro\ River, western Cote d’Ivoire. It rises as the Tienba in the northwestern highlands and becomes the Sassandra at its confluence with the Feredougouba. It courses southeast 400 mi (650 km) to empty into the Gulf of Guinea at the seaport of Sassandra. Its upper reaches have been panned for diamonds; its lower course marks the east¬ ern boundary of the Tai Reserve, known for its pygmy hippopotamus.
Sassanian dynasty See Sasanian dynasty
Sassetta orig. Stefano di Giovanni (d. c. 1450, Siena, Republic of Siena) Italian painter. His interest in Florentine art is evident in his monu¬ mental Madonna of the Snow altarpiece for Siena Cathedral (1430-32)