The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch (Editor), James S. Trefil, James S. Trefil, Joseph F. Kett, Joseph F. Kett

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Preface

A third edition! My colleagues and I have never wavered in our conviction that
the theory behind The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is sound, as it is based
on well-established findings of linguistics and cognitive psychology. But it is
gratifying to learn that its scholarly soundness has found a practical
resonance with the public.

A new edition is called for to keep up with the changes in
American culture. This book contains about five hundred (out of nearly seven
thousand) new entries, of which about two hundred are in the science and
technology chapters. It is frightening to realize that when we wrote the
second edition, almost no one knew what a Web page was. Of the remainder
of the new entries, about half are in the fields of history, politics, and
geography. A thousand entries have been revised for clarity and updated to
reflect current usage. We hope that this book continues to be useful to
Americans of all ages and backgrounds.
I say "to Americans" because the concept of cultural literacy
implies a national culture. Of course the entries reflect content from many
nations of the world, and the principle of cultural literacy is implicitly
international. There are by now German, Dutch, and Swedish versions of this
book. But each is different, having been adapted to the relevant national
language and culture. People within each of these national communities are
bound together not just by political institutions and laws, but also by shared
values and allusions and a shared language. The public understands that in
the United States, our shared language contains notjust "the" and "was"
but "Birmingham Jail," "Sitting Bull," and "pay through the nose."
(Explanations of idioms like "pay through the nose" have been especially
welcomed by immigrant parents and children.)
The public also understands that these shared meanings are
essential for communication inside our nation — or, to put the matter simply,
they are essential for reading. We all know that reading is the most important
academic skill, and that there is a big reading gap between haves and have-
nots in our schools. We know that reading skill is a key not just to a child's
success in school but also, in the information age, to his or her chances in
life. That is why the federal government and now most of the states have
started to place an enormous emphasis on reading.
This is good news and bad news. It's good news because
becoming a good reader is so enormously important. It's bad news because
the people who make and carry out school policies have not been very
sophisticated so far about what is needed, beyond sounding out words, to
become a good reader. On the important matter of reading comprehension,
their vision is vague and clouded. Talking about reading comprehension
reminds me of Mark Twain's comment on the weather: everybody talks about
it, but nobody does anything about it. Reading comprehension scores have
not gone up significantly.
In the United States, reading with understanding is based on the
kind of background knowledge identified in this book, and it is to be hoped
that our schools will begin to do a better job of imparting this kind of
knowledge to all children in a coherent and cumulative way. When they do,
reading comprehension scores will go up. (Data to support this can be found
at the Web site of the Core Knowledge Foundation, www.coreknowledge.org).
From the start, the premise of this dictionary was that true literacy — reading
with comprehension — requires a lot more than sounding out the words on
the page. Those who possess the needed, taken-for-granted knowledge can
understand what they read, and those who lack that knowledge cannot. The
haves learn ever more from what they read and hear; the have-nots fall further
behind and lose the chance to become participating members of the wider
community.
That word "community" brings me to the second motivation behind
this book, the connection between communication and community,
especially in a democracy. A lot of American flags are flying these days.
Some people think this is a worrisome show of nationalism, but I believe it is
a show mainly of solidarity and community. Community is built up of shared
knowledge and values — the same shared knowledge that is taken for
granted when we read a book or newspaper, and that is also taken for
granted as part of the fabric that connects us to one another.
Horace Mann put it eloquently in his nineteenth-century way in
making a case for public schooling and a common curriculum. Shared
knowledge, he said, would enlarge "the cultivated class or caste and . . .
open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and if this
education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things
else to obliterate [artificial] distinctions in society." Mann thought that if
everyone shared the enabling words and knowledge of our culture, everyone
would gain a sense of solidarity with others. Social feelings would expand.
Artificial distinctions of class and caste would be erased, and patriotic
feelings would grow.
The love of country — patriotism — is a very different sentiment
from nationalism. A fine book by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities,
beautifully distinguishes between nationalist and patriotic sentiments.
Nationalism is an aggrandizing, tribalistic sentiment that defines one's own
group as opposed to alien groups, which are seen as potential rivals or
enemies to be overcome or excluded. Patriotism, by contrast, implies love of
country without necessarily implying hostility to anybody else. American
patriotism is built of shared knowledge, attitudes, loyalties, and values,
including the values of nonexclusion, toleration, and respect for other
religions and cultures. Americans have proved that it is possible to feel
patriotic about a cosmopolitan, diverse country, which is loved more for its
vital diversity than for its racial or ethnic purity. That was Walt Whitman's
patriotism, and Herman Melville's. For most of our history, the United States
has imagined itself as a patriotic rather than as a nationalist state. George
Washington thought of himself and was celebrated as Cincinnatus, the
Roman hero who wishes only to return to his hearth and his farm once the
necessary sacrifice and service to the patria is accomplished.
To that, Herman Melville added our modern idea of a nation that
embraces all races and ethnic groups. He said,

There is something in the contemplation of the mode in which America has
been settled that, in a noble breast, should forever extinguish the prejudices
of national dislikes. Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim
her for their own. You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling
the blood of the whole world. . . . We are not a narrow tribe of men — No: our
blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents
all pouring into one. . . . For who were our father and mother? Or can we
point to any Romulus and Remus for our founders? Our ancestry is lost in
the universal paternity, and Caesar and Alfred, St. Paul and Luther, Homer
and Shakespeare are as much ours as Washington, who is as much the
world's as our own.

You might want to read the rest of this wonderful passage (Chapter 33) from
Redburn, written in 1849. I won't quote any more of it here. Suffice it to say
that this American idea of a new kind of patriotism and community is a
tradition that stretches from George Washington to Horace Mann and
Herman Melville to ourselves, and it has not lost its pungency and capacity
to inspire.

—E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
Charlottesville, Virginia, 2002



Technology

There are two reasons to pursue scientific knowledge: for the sake of the
knowledge itself, and for the practical uses of that knowledge. Because this
second aspect of science affects the lives of most people, it is more familiar
than the first. Knowledge must be gained, however, before it can be applied,
and often the most important technological advances arise from research
pursued for its own sake.
Traditionally, new technology has been concerned with the
construction of machines, structures, and tools on a relatively large scale.
The development of materials for building bridges or skyscrapers is an
example of this, as is the development of the internal-combustion engine and
the nuclear reactor. While such activities involve all the sciences, from
chemistry to nuclear physics, the overriding goal has been the same: to
improve the human condition by finding better ways to deal with the
macroscopic world.
Since World War II, the focus of technological activity has
undergone a major change. While the old activities are still pursued, they
have been largely superseded by applications of technology at the
microscopic level. Instead of building large-scale structures and machines,
modern technology tends to concentrate on finding improved ways to transfer
information and to develop new materials by studying the way atoms come
together. The silicon chip and microelectronics typify this new technological
trend, as does the blossoming of genetic engineering. The advent of the
Internet is just one familiar consequence of this new trend, which can be
expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
The dividing line between what we include in the following list as
technology and what we call science elsewhere in this volume is somewhat
arbitrary. In general, what we have done is this: if a term is essential to
understanding a particular branch of science, it appears in the list for that
science. Thus, atom appears with the physical sciences, even though an
understanding of atoms is clearly important to the new technology. If,
however, the term involves something that is likely to affect an individual's life,
even though it is not a central concept of a particular branch of science, it is
listed under "Technology."

— J. T.



alternating current (AC) An electric current in which the flow reverses
periodically. (Compare direct current (DC).)
* In the United States, most household current is AC, going through sixty
reversal cycles each second. Electric motors in household appliances are
designed to work with current at this rate of reversal.

amp (ampere) (am-peer) A unit of electric current. One ampere corresponds
to a certain number of electrons passing a fixed point each second.
* A typical household's electrical supply includes a total of 120 to 200 amps;
a typical house circuit carries 15 to 50 amps.

amplifier In electronics, a device that takes a small electric signal and
converts it into a large one. Amplifiers are used in stereo systems, electric
guitars, and loudspeakers.

amplitude modulation (AM) A type of radio signal in which the amplitude, or
strength, of a radio wave is varied in order to carry information from a
transmitter to a receiver. (Compare frequency modulation (FM).)

analog signal (an-uh-lawg, an-uh-log) A signal in which some feature
increases and decreases in the same way as the thing being transmitted. In
am radio, for example, the strength of the radio wave goes up and down in
analogy with the loudness of the original sound. (Contrast digital signal.)

Apollo program A series of space flights undertaken by the United States
with a goal of landing a man on the moon. Each Apollo flight carried a crew of
three astronauts. The first lunar landing by humans was achieved by Apollo
11 on July 20, 1969. Five other successful lunar landings followed. The Apollo
program ended in 1974. It was named after the Greek god of learning, Apollo.
*Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon.

Arpanet An acronym for Advanced Research Project Agency Network. An
early communications network developed by the Department of Defense in
the late 1960s. It connected high-tech research institutions and the military.
* Creating a communications system that could survive a nuclear war was a
major impetus behind the development of this system. * Arpanet is often
spoken of as a precursor of the Internet.

artificial intelligence (AI) The means of duplicating or imitating intelligence in
computers, robots, or other devices, which allows them to solve problems,
discriminate among objects, and respond to voice commands.

ASCII An acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
Computers use this code to standardize communication between different
machines.

astronaut A crew member of a space mission launched by the United States.
(See Apollo program and Mercury program.)

ATM An abbreviation for automated teller machine. This is a computer
terminal that takes the place of a human bank teller and allows the user to
access basic bank services, such as making deposits and cash withdrawals
from remote locations, twenty-four hours a day.

atomic bomb A bomb that is powered by nuclear fission, and therefore
produces a quick release of energy and great destruction.

backbone The primary line(s) that connects the slower, shorter cable portions
of a communications network together. (See last mile.) In larger networks,
such as the Internet, a backbone consists of high-capacity, high-speed lines
that can extend over great distances.

bandwidth The amount of data that can be carried by a digital communication
medium, often expressed in hertz.
* Within the radio and microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum
limited bandwidth is available, and in the United States the use of the
spectrum is regulated and allocated by the FCC. (See VHF and UHF.)

bar code A series of parallel lines that can be read by an optical scanner and
decoded by a computer into usable information. The ten-line Universal
Product Code (UPC) on the packaging of retail items is an example of this.
The key to this code is the variation in line thickness and separation.

bathyscaph (bath-i-skaf) A deep-sea research vessel that carries a crew and
is free to maneuver independently.

battery A device that produces an electric current by harnessing the
chemical reactions that take place within its cells.

baud rate A number related to the speed of data transmission in a system.
The rate indicates the number of electrical oscillations per second that
occurs within a data transmission. The higher the baud rate, the more bits
per second that are transferred.

Bell, Alexander Graham An American inventor and scientist of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, born in Scotland. He invented the
telephone in 1876. Much of Bell's career was devoted to education of the deaf
and to production of electronic devices to help them hear better.

binary (beye-nuh-ree, beye-ner-ee) Anything composed of two parts. In
modern computers, information is stored in banks of components that act
like switches. Since switches can be either on or o., they have a binary
character, and we say that the computer uses "binary arithmetic" to do its
work.

biological warfare The use of biological agents as weapons in warfare. Also
called germ warfare.

biometrics The measuring and analysis of such physical attributes as facial
features and voice or retinal scans. This technology can be used to define an
individual's unique identity, often for security purposes.
* Software is available that can match faces of individuals videotaped on the
street to the picture of a suspected criminal or terrorist in a database. The
use of biometrics is likely to increase in the future as security concerns
become more of a priority for both governments and corporations following the
September 11 attacks (2001).

bioterrorism The use of biological agents as weapons of terror. Anthrax
bacteria are one such agent, while smallpox is considered one of the more
likely lethal viruses that could serve as a weapon of bioterror. (See germ
warfare.)

bit The smallest unit of information. One bit corresponds to a "yes" or "no."
Some examples of a bit of information: whether a light is on or o., whether a
switch (like a transistor) is on or o., whether a grain of magnetized iron points
up or down.
* The information in a digital computer is stored in the form of bits.

black box A crash-resistant steel container that holds instruments that
record performance data in airplanes. The data are used to analyze the
causes of accidents.

blackout The complete loss of electrical power in a particular area. Blackouts
can result from a natural disaster, a manmade catastrophe, or simply from an
excess of energy demand over supply. (Compare brownout.)

Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Company.