emery Granular rock consisting of a mixture of the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide, A1 2 0 3 ) and iron oxides such as magnetite (Fe 3 0 4 ) or hematite (Fe 2 0 3 ). It is a dark, dense substance that looks much like iron ore. Turkey is the world’s major producer. Long used as an abrasive or polishing material, particularly in sandpapers, it has largely been replaced by synthetic materials such as alumina. Its largest application now is as a nonskid material in floors, stair treads, and pavements.
emigre nobility \,a-me-'gra,\ English \'e-mi-,gra\ Members of the French nobility who fled France during the French Revolution. In exile, mainly in England, many emigres plotted against the Revolutionary gov¬ ernment, seeking foreign help to restore the old regime. In response, Revolutionary leaders in France decreed that those emigres who did not return by January 1792 were liable to death as traitors, and their property was confiscated. Napoleon granted the great majority of emigres amnesty in 1802. During the Bourbon Restoration they were an important force in French politics.
Emilia-Romagna Va-'mel-ya-ro-'man-yaX Autonomous region (pop., 2001 prelim.: 3,960,549), northern Italy. It covers an area of 8,542 sq mi (22,123 sq km); its chief city and capital is Bologna. Located on the Adri¬ atic Sea, Emilia-Romagna includes the Po River to the north and the Apen¬ nines to the west and south. It takes its name from the Roman Aemilian Way, built c. 187 bc. The region formerly comprised the duchies of Parma and Modena and papal Romagna. Emilia-Romagna became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861; the present political region was created in 1948. The fertile Emilian Plain in the north makes Emilia-Romagna one of the leading agricultural regions of Italy. It has a large food-processing indus¬ try, and livestock and dairy farming are extensive.
Emin Pasha \e-'men-pa-'sha\, Mehmed orig. Eduard Schnitzer
(b. March 28, 1840, Oppeln, Silesia—d. Oct. 23, 1892, Kanema, Congo Free State) German physician, explorer, and administrator in Egyptian Sudan. Schnitzer adopted a Turkish name while serving as a medical officer and administrator in the Ottoman government. In 1876 he joined with British forces led by Gen. Charles George Gordon at Khartoum. In 1878 he was appointed governor of Equatoria province. During the Mah- dist movement uprising, the Egyptian government abandoned the Sudan (1884), and the isolated Emin was rescued by Henry Morton Stanley in 1888. On an expedition to equatorial Africa, he was killed by Arab slave- traders. Through his scholarly papers and specimen collections, he con¬ tributed vastly to the knowledge of African geography, natural history, ethnology, and languages.
eminent domain Government power to take private property for pub¬ lic use without the owner’s consent. Constitutional provisions in most countries, including the U.S. (in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution), require the payment of just compensation to the owner. As a power pecu¬ liar to sovereign authority and coupled with a duty to pay compensation, the concept was developed by such 17th-century natural-law jurists as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf. See also confiscation.
emir \i-'mir\ In the Muslim Middle East, a military commander, gover¬ nor of a province, or high military official. The first leader to call himself emir was the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab. The title was used by all his successors until the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. In the 10th cen¬ tury the commander of the caliph’s armies at Baghdad held the title. It was later adopted by the rulers of independent states in central Asia, nota¬ bly Bukhara and Afghanistan. The United Arab Emirates, despite their name, are all ruled by sheikhs.
Emmett, Daniel Decatur (b. Oct. 29, 1815, Mount Vernon, Ohio, U.S.—d. June 28, 1904, Mount Vernon) U.S. showman and songwriter. The son of an Ohio blacksmith, he joined the army at age 17 as a lifer. In 1843 in New York he helped organize the Virginia Minstrels, one of the earliest minstrel-show troupes. He is credited with writing “Dixie” (1859), a minstrel “walk-around” (concluding number) that became the Confed¬
eracy’s unofficial national anthem. His other songs include “Old Dan Tucker” and “Blue-Tail Fly.” He also wrote banjo tunes and music instruc¬ tion manuals.
Emmy award Annual presentation for outstanding achievement in U.S. television. Its name is taken from the nickname “immy” for the image orthicon, a television camera tube. The Emmys are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, founded in 1946, whose members vote on outstanding programs, actors, directors, and writ¬ ers in such categories as drama, comedy, and variety.
Emory Universify Private university in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. It was chartered as a college in 1836 under Methodist auspices; in 1915 it merged with a school of medicine to become a university. It consists of two undergraduate colleges (one four-year and one two-year), a graduate school of arts and sciences, a division of allied health professions, and schools of law, business, theology, public health, nursing, and medicine. Research facilities include the Carter Presidential Center, the Yerkes Pri¬ mate Center, and a cancer centre.
emotion Affective aspect of consciousness. The emotions are generally understood as representing a synthesis of subjective experience, expres¬ sive behaviour, and neurochemical activity. Most researchers hold that they are part of the human evolutionary legacy and serve adaptive ends by adding to general awareness and the facilitation of social communi¬ cation. Some nonhuman animals are also considered to possess emotions, as first described by Charles Darwin in 1872. An influential early theory of emotion was that proposed independently by William James and Carl Georg Lange (1834-1900), who held that emotion was a perception of internal physiological reactions to external stimuli. Walter B. Cannon questioned this view and directed attention to the thalamus as a possible source of emotional content. Later researchers have focused on the brain¬ stem structure known as the reticular formation, which serves to integrate brain activity and may infuse perceptions or actions with emotional valence. Cognitive psychologists have emphasized the role of comparison, matching, appraisal, memory, and attribution in the forming of emotions. All modern theorists agree that emotions influence what people perceive, learn, and remember, and that they play an important part in personality development. Cross-cultural studies have shown that, whereas many emo¬ tions are universal, their specific content and manner of expression vary considerably.
emotivism In metaethics (see ethics), the view that moral judgments do not function as statements of fact but rather as expressions of the speaker’s or writer’s feelings. According to the emotivist, when we say “You acted wrongly in stealing that money,” we are not expressing any fact beyond that stated by “You stole that money.” It is, however, as if we had stated this fact with a special tone of abhorrence, for in saying that something is wrong, we are expressing our feelings of disapproval toward it. Emotivism was expounded by A. J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and devel¬ oped by Charles Stevenson in Ethics and Language (1945).
empathy Ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The empathic actor or singer is one who genuinely feels the part he or she is performing. The spectator of a work of art or the reader of a piece of literature may simi¬ larly become involved in what he or she observes or contemplates. The use of empathy was an important part of the psychological counseling technique developed by Carl R. Rogers.