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Wang An-shih
Wang An-shih , 1021-86, Chinese Sung dynasty statesman. As a chief councilor (1069-74, 1075-76) he directed sweeping administrative and fiscal reforms that drew strong conservative opposition. His aim was to strengthen the central government, but the poor also benefited from reforms such as the grad...
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Wang Yang-ming
Wang Yang-ming , 1472-1529, Chinese philosopher. He developed an idealist interpretation of Confucianism that denied the rationalist dualism of the orthodox philosophy of Chu Hsi . Wang believed that universal moral law is innate in man and discoverable through self-cultivation. In contrast to th...
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Wang Ching-wei
Wang Ching-wei , 1883-1944, Chinese revolutionary and political leader. A supporter of Sun Yat-sen , Wang was sentenced (1910) to life imprisonment for attempting to assassinate the regent of China. Freed in 1912, he studied in France until 1917, when he became personal assistant to Sun. Upon Sun's...
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Wang Wei
Wang Wei , 699-759, Chinese poet. He was an extremely versatile man, being a musician and painter as well as a poet. He wrote quatrains almost exclusively; these verses portray quiet scenes like those depicted in the few surviving paintings attributed to him. Wang Wei's delicate landscapes, famed fo...
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Wang Mang
Wang Mang , 45 BC-AD 23, Chinese Han dynasty regent who usurped the throne and ruled (AD 8-23) as emperor of the Hsin [new] court, carrying out many reforms. Although he portrayed his government as a revival of the idealized state of early Chou times, his reforms were aimed essentially at streng...
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Thimphu
Thimphu or Thimbu , city (1997 est. pop. 45,000), capital and largest city of Bhutan, W Bhutan, on the Wang Chu. The Tashichoedzong, a fortress monastery dating from the 13th cent., has been the seat of Bhutan's government since 1952. At the northern end of the valley where Thimphu is located ar...
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Gang of Four
Gang of Four term of opprobrium given by the Chinese Communist authorities to four persons held responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-69). They were also accused of trying to seize power after the deaths (1976) of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai . The most notable of the Gang...
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Mao Tun
Mao Tun or Mao Dun , pseud. of She Yen-ping , 1896-1981, Chinese novelist and Minister of Culture (1949-65). His fiction offers a sympathetic portrayal of working-class life and praise of revolution. Midnight (1933, tr. 1957), his most widely read work, is a naturalistic novel exploring in ...
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Ssu-ma Kuang
Ssu-ma Kuang , 1018-86, Chinese statesman and historian of the Northern Sung dynasty. He edited the monumental Tzu-chih t'ung-chien [the comprehensive mirror for aid in government], a chronicle of Chinese history from 403 BC to AD 959. The title indicates the belief that history can serve the pres...
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Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel , 1906-78, American mathematician and logician, b. Brünn (now Brno, Czech Republic), grad. Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1930). He came to the United States in 1940 and was naturalized in 1948. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, until 1953, when he became ...
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