Abstract : The « History of Mankind » of UNESCO (1945-2000) From its creation, UNESCO undertook a challenging project : a «History of Mankind » to be written by scholars from the whole world. This enterprise was innovative. It was in line with many historiographical trends, like « universal history », but also (then) new trends like « world history », « area studies », « peace studies », « cultural history ». Through the many steps of its realization, this project is revealing of its time: universalism, positivism and pacifism which inspired its setting up are a feature of immediate post-war period; in the 1950s and 1960s, cold war and colonial questions aroused fierce disagreements and conflicts among its writers. Along its realization (1945-1969), the project met difficulties and it underwent important evolutions in its guidelines. Besides, long-range changes were executed when the book was revised in 2000. This attests that writing a « History of Mankind » is doomed to always remain a « work in progress ». Source : L'HISTOIRE DE L'HUMANITÉ DE L'UNESCO (1945-2000), Chloé Maurel
A vast transnational intellectual network
To carry out this ambitious historiographical project in practice, UNESCO is setting up a vast transnational intellectual network. The established mechanism made specialists from different countries collaborate for several years in the cad international commission for drafting”, established in 1952 under the presidency of Berrêdo Carneiro. To the members of this commission 91 consulted individually as consultants. The members of the "commissions - members) are also consulted. All individuals involved, in whatever capacity, are remunerated 92.
Swiss sociologist Guy S. Métraux, international exchanges of people 93 intellectuals associated with the project. Bringing hundreds of people from The editorial mechanism put in place aims to encourage dialogue between the many players in the project: “a particular contribution will be subject to the control of specialists and to criticism by prior publication.
(...Thus) no cultural group can claim to have been”; this work “will not be done behind closed doors, but in broad daylight,” 94 view is supposed to contribute through democratic means to a universal consensus. The (1953-1973) aim to provide “materials for the”, to “close criticism of scholars and specialists”, and to “allow scholars from all countries to participate in an exchange of views” 95. But the communication between scholars works poorly, in particular because of the cumbersomeness of the process and the refusal of several historians to comply with
The commission is composeed of : Président : Paulo de Berrêdo Carneiro (Brésil) ; Vice-présidents : Louis Gottschalk (États-Unis), Julian Huxley (Royaume-Uni), R.C. Majumdar (Inde), Ralph E. Turner (États-Unis), Gaston Wiet (France), Silvio Zavala (Mexique) et A.A. Zvorikine (URSS) ; Secrétaire général : Guy S. Métraux (Suisse) ; Membres : Jorge Basadre (Pérou), Eduard J. Dijksterhuis (Pays-Bas), Jacques Freymond (Suisse), Karel Krejci (Tchécoslovaquie), Mahmud Husain (Pakistan), Witold Kula (Pologne), Erik Lönnroth (Suède), Guy S. Métraux (Suisse), Eric Molnar (Hongrie), Charles Morazé (France), K.M. Pannikar (Inde), Mario Praz (Italie), Jacquetta Hawkes (Royaume-Uni), Percy E. Schramm (Allemagne), Ali A. Siassi (Iran), J. Pérez Villanueva (Espagne), Caroline Ware (États-Unis) et C. Zurayk (Syrie).
UNESCO’s initial emphasis was on rebuilding schools, libraries, and museums that had been destroyed in Europe during World War II. Since then, its activities have been mainly facilitative, aimed at assisting, supporting, and complementing the national efforts of member states to eliminate illiteracy and to extend free education. UNESCO also seeks to encourage the free exchange of ideas and knowledge by organizing conferences and providing clearinghouse and exchange services.
As many less-developed countries joined the UN beginning in the 1950s, UNESCO began to devote more resources to their problems, which included poverty, high rates of illiteracy, and underdevelopment. During the 1980s UNESCO was criticized by the United States and other countries for its alleged anti-Western approach to cultural issues and for the sustained expansion of its budget. These issues prompted the United States to withdraw from the organization in 1984, and the United Kingdom and Singaporewithdrew a year later.
After the election victory of the Labour Party in 1997, the United Kingdom rejoined UNESCO, and the United States and Singapore followed suit in 2003 and 2007, respectively. In 2011 UNESCO approved full membership for Palestine. Following the vote, the United States announced that it would no longer pay dues to the organization, because of congressional legislation that prohibited the financing of any UN agency that admitted Palestine as a full member.
Because of its unpaid dues, the United States lost its voting rights in UNESCO in 2013. In 2017 U.S. officials, citing “anti-Israel bias” and the size of U.S. arrears, announced that the United States would leave UNESCO again at the end of 2018. Israel withdrew from the organization at the same time.
Source Britanicca.com
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR
PHILOSOPHY AND HUMAN SCIENCES
ANJOMAN-E FALSAFA WA ʿOLŪM-E ENSĀNĪ
Many European intellectuals and researchers felt the need to come out of the isolation to which they had been driven because of the war, and that certain ideological barriers were again creating. They hoped to leave the narrow sphere in which they had been confined, mainly in the former occupied countries. They wanted to fight against massive specialisation and to create a permanent link between the organisations called to join the future Council, favouring their grouping by affinities. Moreover, it was felt that only an international structure with dimensions as large as possible could allow the renewal of the researchers' circulation, their coming together, their possibility of exchanging ideas.
The first general assembly of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies met in January 1949. A supporting organ for a multi-disciplinary and international vocation, CIPSH was conceived as the intermediary between UNESCO on one hand, and learned societies and national academies on the other. Its aim was to extend UNESCO's action in the domain of humanistic studies.
Among its initial activities, in 1949, a first analysis of national-socialism was prefaced by CIPSH's first president, Jaques Rueff. This collective study had been prescribed in 1948 by the UNESCO General Conference, but had met with reticences about its publication.
ANJOMAN-E FALSAFA WA ʿOLŪM-E ENSĀNĪ (Iranian Society for Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences) was formed in 1328 Š./1949 as a regional branch of the International Council of Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences, a UNESCO affiliate, as proposed by Ḡ. ʿA. Raʿdī Aḏaraḵšī, then the Iranian representative at the UNESCO. The Society, whose membership was mostly drawn from the professors of University of Tehran in the humanities divisions, was chaired by the celebrated scholar and statesman, Sayyed Ḥasan Taqīzāda, with Ehsan Yar-Shater serving as Secretary until 1338 Š./1959. In 1958, Taqīzāda retired from the Society’s chairmanship and was succeeded by ʿAlī Akbar Sīāssī, the Chancellor Emeritus, of the University of Tehran.
