21 years of the Unesco Courier: special anthology number
21 years of the Unesco Courier: special anthology number
"Ignorance of each other's ways and lives," reads the preamble of the Constitution of Unesco, "has been a common cause throughout the history of mankind of that suspicion and mistrust between peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war."
For the past 21 years the Unesco Courier has sought by text and image to combat this suspicion and mistrust between peoples by telling the unheadlined story of men and women of different lands who are working together to conquer ignorance and disease, reduce racial prejudice, raise standards of living and foster better understanding of other peoples' ways and lives: in a word, to serve as a window opening on the world of education, the sciences, the arts, and communication, and the problems concerning the nations of the globe in seeking to resolve them.
The Unesco Courier began publication in 1948 with three language editions in English, French and Spanish. It has steadily grown until today it is proud to boast a total of 12 language editions all identical in content and presentation with a readership exceeding 2 million persons. A Russian edition was launched in Moscow in 1957; a German edition in Berne and an Arabic edition in Cairo were launched in 1960; a Japanese edition began publication in Tokyo in 1961; and an Italian edition in Rome in 1963; a Hindi edition in New Delhi in 1967 and a Tamil edition in Madras the same year; and a Hebrew edition in Jerusalem in 1968. A Persian edition produced in Teheran has been launched in 1969.
This special issue brings together a necessarily small selection of the many articles and features that have appeared in the past two decades. It is in no sense a history of Unesco. All articles have been shortened, sometimes drastically, and many articles have had to be omitted though they certainly deserve a place in this anthology.