UNESCO Courier articles from November 1996

UNESCO Courier archives from November 1996

Herve Telemaque: art tells the story of our time on earth. (Haitian artist)(Interview)
November 1, 1996... Haitian-born artist Herve Telemaque uses a mixture of techniques and materials - painting and collage, salvaged objects and graffiti - to create works that attempt to infuse "new energy" into images and words. Here he talks to Juliette Broussard...

The marketplace: past and present.(Cover Story)
November 1, 1996... It has become virtually impossible to live in isolation from the marketplace. Our needs have become so diversified that they can only be met by constant recourse to products, services, finance and information available on the market. And market...

The birth of homo economicus.
November 1, 1996... A historical approach to the development of the economy Has economic man, the selfish, calculating and rational individual that economists place at the heart of their theoretical constructions, always existed? Is he universal or, on the...

Tlatelolco, shop window of the Aztec empire.
November 1, 1996... In pre-Columbian Mexico a great market was held in the Aztec city of Tlatelolco. Its size and organization amazed the Spanish conquistadors, who had seen nothing like it in sixteenth-century Europe. Tlatelolco was a part of the Aztec capital,...

The merchants of Venice.
November 1, 1996... As early as the twelfth century there was a flourishing commercial district in the cluster of islands divided by a canal which we now call Venice. It developed on a site where the land was higher than elsewhere, affording protection against...

Open market or closed shop? (Brazilian markets)
November 1, 1996... Markets held on sugar plantations often enabled the owner to tighten control over his workforce In 1938 the owner of Serro-Azul sugar plantation in Brazil's Pernambuco state set up a market on his estate. Typical of many that were established...

A tradition of cross-border trade. (Africa)
November 1, 1996... The Lake Chad basin has always been a hub of commerce that turns a blind eye to political frontiers The Lake Chad basin has always been a hub of long-distance trade between the Sahara Desert, the forest regions of the Gulf of Guinea and the...

Friday in Carpentras. (market day in provincial France)
November 1, 1996... An ethnologist describes what happens market day in a French provincial town Friday is market day in Carpentras. By seven o'clock in the morning the centre of this old town in southeast France, once surrounded by ramparts and today a complex...

A puzzling transition. (Russia's economic reform)
November 1, 1996... Russian public opinion has mixed feelings about economic reform After the collapse of the planned economy in the Soviet Union, reforms carried out in a difficult economic environment got a mixed reception from the population. Many feared...

Company capitalism. (Japan)
November 1, 1996... Has Japan's market economy reached a turning point? Companies are the key players in Japan's market economy and are regarded as legal entities in their own right. The main share-holders in large businesses are not individuals but interdependent...

Market globalization.
November 1, 1996... The major economic phenomenon of recent years, globalization is benefitting strong countries and bypassing the weak The phenomenon known as the globalization of the economy, which tended to be overlooked during the high-growth years and the...

The rise of the stock market.
November 1, 1996... Stock exchanges, also known as bourses, came into being in Europe in the middle of the sixteenth century when, in conjunction with markets and trade fairs, places were created for transactions involving letters of credit and shares in trading...

Poetry, an education in freedom.
November 1, 1996... It is impossible to be indifferent to the situation of opera in the world today. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this art form which blends in a sublime alchemy the human voice, instrumental music and visual effects enchanted the...

Hawaii: Volcanoes National Park.
November 1, 1996... Once upon a time Pele the fire goddess, daughter of Moe-moea-au-lii the troublemaker and Haumea the Earth-mother, was travelling in search of a place to settle. She tried each of the Hawaiian Islands, one after the other, but whenever she sank...

Baroque churches of the Philippines.
November 1, 1996... An original form of religious architecture arose when European baroque came to the Philippines Five hundred years ago, when Spain was at the height of her power, the Philippines were the Spanish empire's easternmost fringe. The journey from...

The hidden voice of Federico Mompou.
November 1, 1996... A modern Catalan composer whose work deserves to be better known Federico Mompou i Dencausse (1893-1987) is an emblematic figure of Catalan music. He was not, as some have claimed, a somewhat precious miniaturist or a poor man's Debussy, but...

A foundational thinker. (Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget)(includes related articles on rules of a game, e.g., marbles)
November 1, 1996... This year educational institutions, professional journals and international organizations of all kinds are commemorating the centenary of Jean Piaget's birth. Born on 9 August 1896 at Neuchatel (Switzerland), this biologist, psychologist and...