UNESCO Courier articles from June 1997

UNESCO Courier archives from June 1997

On the road. (methods through which ideas traveled)(How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... Ideas have always followed in the wake of trade, war and religion How do ideas travel? It may seem incongruous to ask such a question in a magazine that is published in several dozen languages and is read all over the world. If we make no...

Manuscripts on the move. (medieval manuscripts)(How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... Manuscripts travelled adventurously along the information highways of the medieval world The reproduction of the written word began long before printing with movable type was invented in the middle of the tenth century by the Chinese Pi Sheng....

Best-sellers and gossip-mongers in 18th-century France. (communication systems under Louis XV's rule)(How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... Rumour, gossip and seditious songs fed the underground media that flourished in the reign of Louis XV It would be a mistake to think that the England of Samuel Johnson, the France of Diderot and the Germany of Goethe formed part of a...

'Words have no legs, yet they walk.' (Africa's oral method of communication)(How Ideas Travel)(Interview)
June 1, 1997... Africa's continent-wide lines of communication based on respect for the spoken word * In traditional African societies knowledge was transmitted orally. Did this restrict the spread of ideas? Youssouf Tata Cisse: Not at all. In Africa...

The mixed signals of globalization. (How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... A hard look at the impact of satellite communication on the South Once upon a time ideas circulated on foot, as part of people's baggage. Later, the invention of writing and the spread of literacy transformed the very nature of human...

Cyberspace: a planetary network of people and ideas.(How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... Ideas travelled in the same way, and with the same speed, as people until the 1840s, when magnetic telegraphy was introduced. By 1860 there were 51,500 km of telegraph lines in the United States alone. A permanent transatlantic telegraph line was...

The test of time. (transmittal of ideas through electronic innovations)(How Ideas Travel)
June 1, 1997... From the clay tablet to the computer, a wealth of tools for memorizing ideas and transmitting them through time and space An idea must stand the test of time before it can be transmitted through space. In other words, it must be proof against...

From ideal to action. (introduction to 'UNESCO - an ideal in action')
June 1, 1997... In his latest book, UNESCO - an ideal in action, The continuing relevance of a visionary text, Federico Mayor takes the Constitution of the Organization he has headed for almost ten years as the starting point of a wide-ranging inquiry into the...

Save our soils! (preventing land degradation)
June 1, 1997... The conservation of water and air quality and the protection of plant and animal life are causes that mobilize plenty of support. Soil conservation is a cinderella in comparison. Little studied, little known and neglected in public policy-making,...

Palmyra faces that belong to eternity. (includes related article on Palmyra's history and location)
June 1, 1997... Palmyra, "city of palms", was founded in an oasis between the Orontes and the Euphrates in the heart of the Syrian desert towards the end of the third miLLennium B.C. It was the capital of Palmyrene, an ally of Rome at the beginning of the Roman...

Ancient and modern Egypt come face to face. (urban development pose threat to antiquities)
June 1, 1997... Prestigious archaeological sites threatened by urban encroachment In the last few years rampant population growth and urban sprawl have combined to pose an increasingly serious threat to Egypt's archaeological monuments and sites. The ugly...

We are witnessing a transformation of society and civilization (interview with Viviane Forrester, novelist and literary critic)(Interview)
June 1, 1997... French writer Viviane Forrester is a novelist, Literary critic and the author of an award-winning biography of Van Gogh. Her most recent book is L'Horreur Economique (1996), an examination of the tyranny of economics in the modern world which has...

Paulo Freire.(Obituary)
June 1, 1997... (1921-1997) Paulo Freire has left us, and with his passing something has gone from the world's classrooms; on every continent teachers have felt, perhaps unconsciously, a moment's sadness before returning to their task with renewed force and...