Demerara X.de-ms-'rar-sV River River, eastern Guyana. Rising in the forests of central Guyana, it flows north for 215 mi (346 km) to the Atlan¬ tic Ocean at Georgetown. Oceangoing steamers ascend 65 mi (105 km) to Linden to take on bauxite; smaller ships reach Malali, 25 mi (40 km) farther upstream, beyond which lie numerous rapids.
Demeter \di-'me-tsr\ In Greek religion, a consort of Zeus and the god¬ dess of agricuture, especially grain.
Though rarely mentioned by Homer and not an Olympian deity, she is probably an ancient goddess. She is best remembered for her role in the story of Persephone, in which her lack of attention to the harvest causes a famine. In addition to appearing as a goddess of agriculture, Demeter was sometimes worshiped as a divinity of the Underworld and as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage.
Demetrius I Poliorcetes \do- , me-tre-ss... l pa-le- l 6r-'se-tez\ (b. 336 bc, Macedonia—d. 283, Cilicia)
King of Macedonia (294-288). As a young general he fought to rebuild the empire of his father, Antigonus I Monophthalmus. Under his father’s command, he initially failed in his assaults on Egypt and Nabataea, but he later freed Athens from Mace¬ donia (307) and defeated Ptolemy I Soter (306), restoring some of his father’s domain. He fought alongside his father at the Battle of Ipsus (301), where Antigonus was killed, and later retook Athens (294). He became king of Macedonia as Demetrius I Poliorcetes (“the Besieger”) after kill¬ ing Alexander V (r. 297-294). Driven out in 288, he surrendered to Seleu- cus I Nicator in 285.
DeMille \d3-'mil\ A Cecil B(lount) (b. Aug. 12, 1881, Ashfield, Mass., U.S.—d. Jan. 21, 1959, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. film director and pro¬ ducer. In 1913 he joined Jesse Lasky (1880-1958) and Samuel Goldwyn to form the forerunner of Paramount Communications. Their first venture, The Squaw Man (1914), was the first full-length feature film produced in Hollywood, and it established DeMille as a director. He made numerous comedies before creating biblical spectacles such as The Ten Command¬ ments (1923, remade 1956) and The King of Kings (1927). He was known for his flamboyance and his taste for huge casts and extravagant sets. Among his 70 other films are Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Great¬ est Show on Earth (1952, Academy Award for best picture). He also hosted the popular weekly Lux Radio Theatre (1936-45).
Deming, W(illiam) Edwards (b. Oct. 14, 1900, Sioux City, Iowa, U.S.—d. Dec. 20, 1993, Washington, D.C.) U.S. statistician, educator, and advocate of quality-control methods in industrial production. He received his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Yale University, and he subse¬ quently taught at New York University for 46 years. From the 1930s he employed statistical analysis to achieve better industrial quality control. In 1950 he was invited to Japan to teach executives and engineers. His ideas, which centred on tallying product defects, analyzing and address¬ ing their causes, and recording the effects of the changes on subsequent quality, were eagerly adopted there and eventually helped Japanese prod¬ ucts dominate the market in much of the world. In 1951 Japan instituted the Deming Prize, awarded to corporations that win a rigorous quality control competition. Deming’s ideas were taken up by U.S. corporations in the 1980s, particularly under the rubric of Total Quality Management.
Demiurge \'de-me-srj\ Subordinate god who shapes and arranges the physical world. In his dialogue Timaeus, Plato identified the Demiurge as the force that fashioned the world from the preexisting materials of chaos. In Gnosticism of the early Christian era, the Demiurge is regarded as an
Demeter of Cnidus, sculpture, mid-4th century bc; in the British Museum.
COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
democracy ► Dempsey i 531
inferior deity who had created the imperfect, material world and who belonged to the forces of evil opposing the supreme God of goodness.
democracy Form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections. In a direct democracy, the public participates in government directly (as in some ancient Greek city-states, some New England town meetings, and some cantons in modern Switzerland). Most democracies today are represen¬ tative. The concept of representative democracy arose largely from ideas and institutions that developed during the European Middle Ages and the Enlightenment and in the American and French Revolutions. Democracy has come to imply universal suffrage, competition for office, freedom of speech and the press, and the rule of law. See also republic.
Democratic Party One of the two major political parties in the U.S., historically the party of labour, minorities, and progressive reformers. In the 1790s a group of Thomas Jefferson’s supporters called themselves “Democratic Republicans” or “Jeffersonian Republicans” to demonstrate their belief in the principle of popular government and their opposition to monarchism. The party adopted its present name in the 1830s, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Democrats won nearly every presidential election in the years 1836-60, but the issue of slavery split the party. The Southern Democrats called for the protection of slavery in the new terri¬ tories, whereas the Northern Democrats, led by Stephen A. Douglas, advo¬ cated allowing each territory to decide by popular sovereignty whether to accept slavery within its borders. As a result, in 1860 the new antislavery Republican Party won its first national victory under Abraham Lincoln. From 1861 to 19 1 3 the only Democratic president was Grover Cleveland; in these years the party was basically conservative and agrarian-oriented, and its members were opposed to protective tariffs. It returned to power under Woodrow Wilson, instituting greater federal regulation of banking and industry, but the Republicans’ frank embrace of big business drew voters amid the prosperity of the 1920s. Democrats became dominant again in 1932, electing Franklin D. Roosevelt. A coalition of urban workers, small farmers, liberals, and others sustained Democrats in office until 1953, and the party regained the presidency with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. In the 1970s and ’80s the Democrats held the presidency only during the single term of Jimmy Carter (1976-81) but retained majority control of the House of Representatives. They regained the presidency in 1992 with the election of Bill Clinton but lost control of both the House and the Senate in 1994. In the presidential election of 2000, Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, was defeated by Republican George W. Bush. In 2004 the party’s presidential nominee, John Kerry, was defeated by Bush, and the Demo¬ crats lost seats in both houses of Congress. The modem Democratic Party generally supports a strong federal government with powers to regulate business and industry in the public interest; federally financed social ser¬ vices and benefits for the poor, the unemployed, the aged, and other groups; and the protection of civil rights.
Democratic Republic of the Congo See Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democrats of the Left (DS ) formerly (1921-91) Italian Commu¬ nist Party (1991-98) Democratic Party of the Left Major Italian political party. Founded as the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) in 1921 by dissidents of the Italian Socialist Party’s left wing, it was outlawed with other political parties by Benito Mussolini’s fascist government in 1926 and went underground. It participated in the Italian Resistance in World War II. After the war it joined in coalition governments and was consis¬ tently successful at the polls. In 1956, after the crimes of Joseph Stalin were revealed, Palmiro Togliatti tried to dissociate the PCI from the Soviet Union. Enrico Berlinguer, as party leader from 1972 to 1984, became the leading proponent of Eurocommunism. In order to consolidate left-wing forces and broaden its base, the party changed its name to Democratic Party of the Left in 1991; it became one of Italy’s largest political parties and western Europe’s largest communist party. In 1998 it renamed itself Democrats of the Left.