Hecuba Vhe-kyo-boV In Greek legend, the wife of the Trojan king Priam and mother of Hector. At the end of the Trojan War she was taken pris¬ oner. According to Euripides, her youngest son, Polydorus, had been placed in the care of Polymestor, king of Thrace. When she arrived in Thrace,
she learned that Polydorus had been murdered. In revenge, she blinded Polymestor and killed his two sons. In other versions of the legend, she was later turned into a dog, and her grave beside the Hellespont became a landmark for ships.
hedgehog Any of 14 species of insectivores in the family Erinaceidae. They eat primarily insects and other arthropods but will also eat plant material. The nine species of spiny hedgehogs have short, barbless spines on the back, a round body, small head, pointed face, and little or no tail. Species range from 4 to 17 in. (10 to 44 cm) long. Spiny hedgehogs are native to Great Britain, northern Africa, and Asia; one species was intro¬ duced into New Zealand. The five species of gymnure, or hairy hedge¬ hog, are Asian. They have coarse guard hairs but no spines and are extremely malodorous. The common gymnure may be 18 in. (46 cm) long and have a 12-in. (30-cm) tail. See also porcupine.
hedgerow Fence or boundary formed by a dense row of shrubs or low trees. Hedgerows enclose or separate fields, protect the soil from wind erosion, and serve to keep cattle and other livestock enclosed. To lay a hedge, the trunks of closely planted saplings of species suitable for hedge¬ rows (e.g., hawthorn) are cut a good portion of the way through and the sapling laid down on the ground. New growth rises vertically, forming an impenetrable mesh of branches. In Britain, hedgerows have been a fea¬ ture of the countryside since the enclosure movement and provide a habi¬ tat for numerous songbirds and small animals. As large-scale mechanized farming has become dominant, hedgerows are being removed to combine small fields into larger ones.
hedging Method of reducing the risk of loss caused by price fluctua¬ tion. It consists of the purchase or sale of equal quantities of the same or very similar commodities in two different markets at approximately the same time, with the expectation that a future change in price in one mar¬ ket will be offset by an opposite change in the other market. For example, a grain-elevator operator may agree to buy a ton of wheat and at the same time sell a futures contract for the same quantity of wheat; when the wheat is sold, he buys back the futures contract. If the grain price has dropped, he can buy back the futures contract for less than he sold it for; his profit from doing so will be offset by his loss on the grain. Hedging is also com¬ mon in the securities and foreign-exchange markets. See also stock option.
Heeger, Alan J. (b. Jan. 22, 1936, Sioux City, Iowa, U.S.) U.S. chem¬ ist. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961. With Alan G. MacDiarmid and Shirakawa Hideki, Heeger determined that certain plastics can be chemically modified to conduct electricity almost as readily as metals. The finding led to the discovery of other con¬ ductive polymers and contributed to the emerging field of molecular elec¬ tronics. Heeger, who taught at several institutions, founded the UNIAX Corp. in 1990. In 2000 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with MacDiarmid and Shirakawa.
Hefei Vh3-'fa\ or Ho-fei Vho-'fa \ formerly Luzhou or Lu-chou City (pop., 1999 est.: 1,000,655), central China. The capital of Anhui province since 1949, the present city dates from the Song dynasty (960-1126). It is a natural centre of communications, with easy water transport to the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) and important land routes running through it. A railway built in the 1930s transports much of its produce. It is the main location of China’s University of Science and Technology.
Hefner, Hugh (Marston) (b. April 9, 1926, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. magazine publisher and entrepreneur. After serving in the U.S. Army (1944-46), he attended the University of Illinois, graduating in 1949. In 1953 he founded Playboy , a magazine for men. Playboy's, intellectually respectable articles and its forthright philosophy of hedonism made it a seminal influence on the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s. Hefner later expanded his enterprise into nightclubs and other entertainment media.
Hegel Vha-goU, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (b. Aug. 27, 1770, Stutt¬ gart, Wiirttemberg—d. Nov. 14, 1831, Berlin) German philosopher. After working as a tutor, he was headmaster of the gymnasium at Niirnberg (1808-16); he then taught principally at the University of Berlin (1818— 31). His work, following on that of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and F.W. Schelling, marks the pinnacle of post-Kantian German idealism. Inspired by Christian insights and possessing a fantastic fund of concrete knowledge, Hegel found a place for everything—logical, natural, human, and divine—in a dialectical scheme that repeatedly swung from thesis to antithesis and back again to a higher and richer synthesis. His panoramic system engaged philosophy in the consideration of all the problems of
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
856 I Hegelianism ► Heimlich maneuver
history and culture, none of which could any longer be deemed foreign to its competence. At the same time, it deprived all the implicated ele¬ ments and problems of their autonomy, reducing them to symbolic mani¬ festations of the one process, that of the Absolute Spirit’s quest for and conquest of its own self. His influence has been as fertile in the critical reactions he precipitated as in his positive impact. His principal works are Phenomenology of Mind (1807), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sci¬ ences (1817), and Philosophy of Right (1821). He is regarded as the last of the great philosophical system builders. See also Hegelianism.
Hegelianism Mii-'ga-le-o-.ni-zomX Diversified philosophical movement that developed out of G. W. F. Hegel’s system of thought. Four stages can be distinguished. The first consists of the Hegelian school in Germany in the period 1827-50. The school divided into three currents. The right, or “Old Hegelians,” sought to uphold Hegelianism’s compatibility with evangelical orthodoxy and conservative political policies. The left, or “Young Hegelians,” interpreted Hegel’s identification of the rational with the real in a revolutionary sense. The center preferred to fall back on interpretations of the Hegelian system in its genesis and significance. In the second phase (1850-1904), usually called Neo-Hegelian, the works of the center played a preponderant role. After Wilhelm Dilthey discovered unpublished papers from Hegel’s youth in the early 20th century, there arose in Germany yet another movement; this third phase, the Hegel renaissance, stressed the reconstruction of the genesis of Hegel’s thought. In the fourth stage, after World War II, the revival of Marxist studies in Europe finally thrust into the foreground the value of the Hegelian heri¬ tage for Marxism.
Hegira See Hijrah Heh See Hu, Sia, and Heh
Hei-lung-chiang See Heilongjiang
Heian \'ha-'an\ period (794-1185) Period of Japanese history named for the capital city of Heian-kyo (Kyoto). It is known mainly for the flour¬ ishing culture of the court aristocracy, which devoted itself to the pursuit of aesthetic refinement as displayed in poetry and calligraphy. Murasaki Shikibu’s contemporaneous novel The Tale ofGenji depicts that life. A less refined view of Heian Japan is offered in one portion of Konjaku monoga- tari, a collection of stories and folktales. Aesthetics were also emphasized by the Shingon Buddhist sect, which, along with the broadly syncretic Tendai (Chinese Tiantai) sect, replaced the earlier Nara Buddhist sects in influence. Pietism gained popularity in the late Heian, leading to the founding of the Pure Land sect by Honen. Politically, civilians dominated until 1156, when warriors were called in to settle a political dispute and never left. A brief period of rule by the Taira military clan ensued. See also Fujiwara family; Gempei War; Sugawara Michizane; Taira Kiyomori.