A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace

by Lynn Meskell

Best known for its World Heritage program committed to "the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity," the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded in 1945 as an intergovernmental agency aimed at fostering peace, humanitarianism, and intercultural understanding. Its mission was inspired by leading European intellectuals such as Henri Bergson, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, and Aldous and Julian Huxley. Often critiqued for its inherent Eurocentrism, UNESCO and its World Heritage program today remain embedded within modernist principles of "progress" and "development" and subscribe to the liberal principles of diplomacy and mutual tolerance. However, its mission to prevent conflict, destruction, and intolerance, while noble and much needed, increasingly falls short, as recent battles over the World Heritage sites of Preah Vihear, Chersonesos, Jerusalem, Palmyra, Aleppo, and Sana'a, among others, have underlined.

A Future in Ruins is the story of UNESCO's efforts to save the world's heritage and, in doing so, forge an international community dedicated to peaceful co-existence and conservation. It traces how archaeology and internationalism were united in Western initiatives after the political upheavals of the First and Second World Wars. This formed the backdrop for the emergent hopes of a better world that were to captivate the "minds of men." UNESCO's leaders were also confronted with challenges and conflicts about their own mission. Would the organization aspire to intellectual pursuits that contributed to the dream of peace or instead be relegated to an advisory and technical agency? An eye-opening and long overdue account of a celebrated yet poorly understood agency, A Future in Ruins calls on us all to understand how and why the past comes to matter in the present, who shapes it, and who wins or loses as a consequence.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Academic

396 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 2, 2018

Reviews

[Jetske · Rating 4 out of 5]

I already finished this ages ago lol. Very interesting, but dense.

[Tessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Het is duidelijk wat de belangrijkste punten van de schrijfster zijn. Maar deze worden niet helemaal lekker overgebracht. Het zijn te veel voorbeelden met te veel verdragen en namen die onthouden moeten worden. Hierdoor is het taaie en saaie stof waardoor het boek niet makkelijk wegleest. Het boek is ook iets te veel negatief terwijl UNESCO ook goede dingen doet, anders zou het niet meer bestaan. Toch 2 sterren vanwege de goede punten die de schrijfster maakt.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bit dry at the beginning, but it ended up being a thorough dissection of everything that’s wrong with the way UNESCO functions today, from its failure to incorporate archaeology into its mission to its domination by nation-states and their agendas that often have little to do with cultural heritage. Very glad I read this.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Meskell's better books. She tends to write better about heritage than she does about Egypt. An interesting and fraught history of UNESCO. It would have been helpful if she had included some more ideas about helpful ways forward.

[Mere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Meskell is my professor this semester—seriously one of the coolest people out there. Had no idea what I was getting into taking a graduate anthropology class (esp because I’ve literally never taken an anthropology class before) but it’s been a super interesting ride!

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s insightful and well researched. However it gets repetitive and is probably inaccessible to a general audience.

[Erin]

f'23 - penny - global europe

[Bart Bickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The post World War II idealism that created UNESCO among other international institutions now seems a distant memory. Cultural values residing in places like World Heritage sites provide a continuity through the narrative of this critical history of global-scale conservation practice. Not a pleasant travelogue by any means, but a good read if, like this reader, you are interested in the field of heritage conservation writ large.