STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Let Us Beat our Swords into Ploughshares, UN Headquarters, New York
[Evan Schneider/Creative Commons]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
WHEN delegates from 50 nations signed the newly created UN Charter in April 1945 in San Francisco, its explicit mission was to keep “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
The ceremony took place in late June and was immediately torpedoed — as it would be on many an occasion in the future — by cynical US doublespeak. On August 6 and 9 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated.
The UN general assembly met for the first time in London in January 1946 and 13 years years later in December 1959, at the height of the cold war, the government of the Soviet Union presented the UN with a bronze sculpture, Let Us Beat Our Swords into Ploughshares, by Soviet artist Evgeny Vuchetich, creator of the Stalingrad memorial.
Similar stories
The colonial mindset behind the governance of the UN is the reason for its inertia when it comes to conflict resolution, argues ROGER McKENZIE – but can China’s Global Governance Initiative point in a new direction of global equality?
As we mark the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, JOHN WIGHT reflects on the enormity of the US decision to drop the atom bombs
A multipolar world is emerging where a number of countries of the global South are now using their growing economic power and political importance to demand reform of the post-WWII order, argues DAVID CAVENDISH