UNESCO Courier articles from May 1994

UNESCO Courier archives from May 1994

Trinh Xuan Thuan. (astrophysicist) (Interview)
May 1, 1994... Trinh Xuan Thuan is an astrophysicist from Hanoi (Viet Nam). At the University of Virginia in the United States he teaches a course on astronomy for poets As a "surveyor of the universe," he tries to understand its structure using the most...

An end and a beginning. (collapse of communism warrants re-examination of history) (Cover Story)
May 1, 1994... The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of a conception of history that had prevailed in Europe for two centuries. How should the link between past, present and future be defined from now on? A few months before the fall of the...

Wanted: a new language. (Russian historiography fails to change with society)
May 1, 1994... After ceasing to toe the Marxist line, some Russian historians are still searching for a fresh approach to thier country's past HISTORY is a language unto itself that allows historians to speak simultaneously about the past and about...

Past imperfect. (re-establishing critical outlook to history among citizes of former communist countries)
May 1, 1994... When the collective memory has been warped by Stalinism and national-communism, re-establishing a critical outlook is an uphill job IN the countries of eastern Europe, control of the collective memory has been an essential feature of...

The historian's responsibility. (eliminating concept of history capable of fueling racial conflict)
May 1, 1994... The dangers of an idea of history that fuels ethnic conflicts IT is a well-known fact that the Soviet Union's intellectual bureaucrats, from the 1930s onwards, imposed upon the country a theory of history that they had put together from...

Myths that die hard. (revival of scientific historiography in Poland)
May 1, 1994... Historians should eschew the role of prophecy and myth-making IN eastern Europe, historical materialism had a dual role: first to demonstrate that all changes must inevitably lead to world communism, and secondly to justify the political...

Inventing the urban future. (solving urban problems) (GreenWatch)
May 1, 1994... EARLY this century, the German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918) stated that "In big cities the individual has a form and degree of freedom that does not exist elsewhere". Will this still be true in six years' time, when it is expected that...

A clean island. (Iceland's need for well-planned environmental policy) (GreenWatch)
May 1, 1994... SITUATED in the north Atlantic on the edge of the Arctic circle, some 800 km west of Scotland, Iceland is an island of ice and fire. Over half of its population of 260,000 live in or near Reykjavik, the capital. During the summer months, however,...

Lost illusions. (public interest in Czechoslovakia's past unearths unpleasant memories)
May 1, 1994... A hard look at a troubled past As in every other former communist country, public interest in the past in post-communist Czechoslovakia began with curiosity about everything that had been previously forbidden. The history of churches and...

When memory plays tricks. (rewriting history to suit current standards and situations)
May 1, 1994... A Sociologist discovers how history can be retouched by those who took part in it "OUR past is becoming more and more unpredictable." Bulgarians today are increasingly familiar with this paradox. Not for the first time, they are asking...

An authentic picture. (includes related articles)
May 1, 1994... AT a very early stage, Western historians surrendered to the stubborn refusal of African history to fit into their conceptual frameworks. They left it to sociologists to study, in piecemeal fashion, the cultures of individual "ethnic groups" or...

The Yokohama conference. (World Conference on the Reduction of Natural Disasters, Yokohama, Japan)
May 1, 1994... UNESCO AND THE PREVENTION OF NATURAL DISASTERS IN the past two decades, natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, grasshopper and locust infestations, drought and...

An active pact. (global struggle against poverty and other forms of social exclusion)
May 1, 1994... WE are living in an age of paradox, an age which is baroque in its immoderation, and in which the hopes born at the end of the Cold War--hopes for a more peaceful world enjoying greater prosperity, justice, solidarity and freedom--encounter the...

Thomas Mann: the collectivist betrayal. (speech) (Archives) (Transcript)
May 1, 1994... In 1935 Thomas Mann (1875-1955) took part in a meeting in Nice (France) organized by the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation on the theme of "the education of modern man", and delivered a lecture the first instalment of which is...

Quebec: a city beyond compare. (Quebec, Canada)
May 1, 1994... The cradle of French civilization in America and a fortified city of outstanding interest, historic Quebec is one of UNESCO's world heritage sites WHEN he built his first lodging, which served as a warehouse, home and fort on the northern bank...