This Century

Robertson, Priscilla

This Century History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development. Volume VI: The Twentieth Century, by Caroline Ware, K. M. Panikkar, and J. M. Romein. Sponsored by UNESCO. Harper & Row. 1,387...

...They did receive permission to annotate the chapters, a process which took five years...
...When the volume was commissioned, the Soviet Union was not a member of UNESCO, and so its historians were left off the list of author-editors and original consultants...
...One of the most interesting features of the material is the comment at the end of every chapter...
...This huge volume on the Twentieth Century represents a remarkable achievement...
...Actually the comments are much more fascinating, highlighted in this way at the end, than they would have been if they could have been homogenized into the text itself...
...If they had been connected with the writing, the book might not be out yet, and perhaps they could never have agreed to its publication...
...With tasteful restraint the author-editors limit their counter-attacks to small sedate notes, usually calling the reader's attention to the exact words of their text, or to some other place in the book where the matter at issue is further developed...
...UNESCO's objective is to bring all of history into a universal perspective, no longer biased by any special nationalism, cultural preference, or the view of any special ideology...
...Later on the Russians came in, but too late for them to be included at the writing stage of the book (though the consultant list shows that some of their learned men prepared memoranda...
...Since the Table of Contents takes up nine and a half pages, it obviously cannot even be summarized here in a paragraph, but it includes such subjects as "cell biology," "the spread of industrialization," "racial superiority," "the new mass media and the arts," and "treatment and prevention of social breakdown...
...The consensus of so many experts naturally eliminates any sharply personal insights or radical new interpretations...
...But if this volume gives us "the conventional wisdom" (albeit of advanced thinkers), it gives it in an unconventional amount...
...18.50...
...1,387 pp...
...There is more information here than any one person could possibly hold in his mind, and everyone will find his own surprises...
...Reviewed by Priscilla Robertson Although Volumes III, IV, and V are still missing, UNESCO has now added the sixth volume to its scientific and cultural history of the world...
...To obtain the information needed, consultants from all over the globe were used, and the list of their names takes up thirteen pages...
...It would be hard to think of any major matter of interest to mankind, or many minor ones, that is not covered...

Vol. 32 • May 1968 • No. 5


 
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