- Industry: Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 1330
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
(born 1954) Television and movie actor of the 1980s and 1990s. Washington’s first movie role, Carbon Copy (1981), was followed by a stint as the resident Dr Chandler on NBC’s doctor show St Elsewhere (1982–8). A part in the Civil War movie Glory (1989) earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His performance in this movie led to roles in other bigbudget productions, including The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993) and Courage Under Fire (1996). His portrayals of Malcolm X (1992), directed by Spike Lee (with whom he has worked in two other films), and the South African Steve Biko, in Cry Freedom (1987), received critical acclaim. Washington also starred in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), the inaugural movie of his production company Mundy Lane Entertainment, and Hurricane (1999) for which he was nominated for Best Actor. He continues to mix box office hits with serious films.
Industry:Culture
(born 1954) The daughter of a Mexican American mother and Mexican father, Sandra Cisneros grew up in poverty and spent much of her childhood moving back and forth between Mexco City and Chicago, IL. Her writing reflects this state of migrancy with its apparent longing for rootedness. Cisneros’ award-winning works, the novel House on Mango Street (1983) and her book of poems, My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987), have made her a leading figure in Chicana literature.
Industry:Culture
(born 1954) Through her talk show, syndicated since 1986, and her active production company Winfrey has become one of the most influential and wealthy African Americans in history with a power to make media as well as appear in them. Her gender, aggressive yet intimate style as an interviewer and her ability to shape middle-class tastes through her program and book club, while surviving tabloid reports on her loves and diet, make this more remarkable. Although nominated for an Oscar for The Color Purple (1985) her later acting career proved less striking; Beloved (1998) was a confusing failure for Toni Morrison’s novel.
Industry:Culture
(born 1955) Born in Seattle to a prominent family Gates attended Harvard University with the intention of becoming a lawyer like his father, although at age thirteen he was already working on his first computer program. An awkward adolescent who rarely went to parties, Gates has become Harvard’s most famous and wealthy drop-out as the brains behind the world’s largest software company Microsoft.
The myth of Microsoft’s origin goes like this: one day in December 1974, Gates contacted the manufacturer of the Altair 8800 (a do-it-yourself computer) to inform them that he could provide software. To fill the contract Gates and his friend Paul Allen (who worked at Honeywell) formed “Microsoft.” The company struggled until IBM asked Gates to provide an operating system for its first PC. Gates bought the QDOS system from another company renamed it MS-DOS and licensed it to IBM. Owing to Gates’ successful maneuvering, the success of the PC became inextricably linked to the rise of Microsoft.
At first Microsoft focused on the software market; its word-processing program Microsoft Word rivaled WordPerfect and other programs. Meanwhile, at thirty-one, Gates became a billionaire when his company went public. The company changed focus in 1987 with the introduction of Windows, the operating system now on virtually every PC, although it is not universally endorsed. Even within the ranks of non-Macintosh users, some prefer the Unix and Linux operating systems, criticizing Windows for being “buggy” and flawed.
In 1995 the company changed focus again, this time turning towards the Internet and pushing its browser, Internet Explorer, tied to the functioning of the computer’s desktop.
The bundling of software (which didn’t include IE’s rival Netscape) has come under scrutiny from the Justice Department, whose preliminary decision stated that Microsoft had engaged in monopolistic practices, thus continuing a series of antitrust investigations.
Regardless, Microsoft is now a major player in Internet-related and entertainment businesses and has entered into alliances with NBS and with the cable station and website MSNBC.
In 1998, the Justice Department began court actions against Microsoft for antitrust violations, especially with regard to bundling Internet software with its PC operating system and maintaining a monopoly for that system. After a preliminary finding of fact in November, 1999, on April 3, 2000, Judge Thomas Jackson ruled that Microsoft had in fact violated the Sherman Anti-trust Act and soon recommended divisions in the operation of the company. Public reaction as well as stockmarket interest has been intense.
Nonetheless, Gates remains one of the world’s richest men; he has recently begun to involve himself in philanthropy with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and has talked about the need to return to creative outlets. His lifestyle, meanwhile, combines elements of the American middle class and its success stories with the opulence of a 40,000 square foot mansion. His company both loved and hated, has become one of the foundations of the century ahead.
Industry:Culture
(born 1955) Bright Lights, Big City (1984) identified the Tennessee author with New York City, NY’s literary brat pack, including Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, and their Generation-X depictions of empty yuppie lives in the big city After becoming, in his own words, an overexposed literary celebrity as a twenty-something, McInerney has sought more serious themes and style, sometimes reflecting F. Scott Fitzgerald, in later novels like Brightness Falls (1992) and The Last of the Savages (1996).
Industry:Culture
(born 1955) One of the most popular and bestselling authors of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries, Grisham has mastered the intricate legal maneuvering that drives all of his plots. His main character is usually a brilliant if somewhat maverick attorney confronting the shortcomings of his profession as he schemes to correct or take advantage of the system to his or his client’s benefit. Grisham has addressed several modern social ailments, such as the death penalty (The Chamber, 1994) or homelessness (The Street Lawyer, 1998). He has been a permanent fixture on the bestseller lists since 1990, and six of his ten novels have been made into movies.
Industry:Culture
(born 1956) Actor/director: Gary Cooper for the 1990s. Hanks’ often childlike comedic persona in the 1980s (Big, 1988) gave way to a “man-next-door” “Americanness” in 1990s movies about baseball, romance, social change, AIDS, space and war. This is not facile—his portrait of a gay lawyer dying of AIDS in Philadelphia (Oscar, 1993) grew powerfully from this everyman association, as well as his acting skills. Meanwhile, Forrest Gump (again, best-actor Oscar, 1994), while immensely popular, evoked an unnervingly passive observation of the American century It remains intriguing to see how this major boxoffice star’s choices intertwine with changing concepts of American life itself. Most recently his focus has been manifest in the Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Second World War commemorations.
Industry:Culture
(born 1956) Law professor. In 1991 Hill sparked a national debate on sexual harassment in the workplace when she leveled harassment charges against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas at his Senate confirmation hearing. Hill testified that Thomas, previously her boss at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sexually harassed her on the job. Thomas denied the charges. Hill’s testimony televised nationwide, transformed the confirmation process into a national educational program on sexual harassment and reinvigorated American feminism. The all-male Senate committee’s questioning of Hill and confirmation of Thomas raised questions about their sensitivity to women’s concerns and helped elect more women to public office.
Industry:Culture
(born 1957) Cuban American singer whose appeal and musical style cut across lingual boundaries and musical genre definitions. In 1975 she joined the group Miami Sound Machine, headed by her now husband, Emilio. As her popularity grew, the Sound Machine name was dropped. Today, the Estefan collaboration has resulted in over twenty albums and numerous pop hits. In 1990 she was severely injured in a bus crash in Pennsylvania and was temporarily paralyzed, but has since made a full recovery. Among her most popular songs are “Bad Boys” (1985), “Coming Out of the Dark” (1991) and “I See Your Smile” (1992).
Industry:Culture
(born 1957) Forerunner of a new generation of film-school trained black directors, Lee has expanded his films about race, class and gender into a more complex and enduring career with surprising tenderness as well as compelling questions both whites and blacks might prefer to forget. His films have spurred controversy and dislike from feminist critics of his debut, She’s Gotta Have It (1986), to uneasy white and ethnic readings of Do the Right Thing (1989) or Summer of Sam (1999), which portray a divided New York City.
Controversy has also plagued his relations with and criticism of Hollywood; although Malcolm X (1992) took on many of the trappings of a Hollywood production, award nominations that have eluded him most.
Industry:Culture
