While it is potentially OT, I found what Rob Tye was referring to online. The resolutions from the sixth session of the UNESCO General Conference in Paris 1951: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001145/114588e.pdf .

These resolutions do not include explanation or elaboration of the discussion, only the decision made through resolution 1.316 with heading "The revision of history and geography textbooks." The decision reads:

1.316 The Director-General is authorized :
To stimulate Member States, in the light of the seminars previously held on this subject,
to proceed with the revision of their history and geography textbooks, particularly through
either bilateral or multilateral arrangements.

The call or minutes for those "seminars previously held on this subject" would undoubtedly be an interesting read. 


Per Bylund

_____________________
Per L. Bylund, Ph.D.
Baylor University
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rob Tye
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 8:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] inter-war Written Examinations for the Ph.D. Degree

Regarding the inter-war written examination for the Ph.D. Degree

This not directly relevant, but perhaps still of interest?

A good few years ago I dropped in at the Economist Bookshop at LSE, and in
the back room, below the second hand books, was a cardboard box of pamphlets
priced at GBP 1 each.

One of them had the title "Better History Books", as I best recall, and it
was the minutes of an international UNESCO conference on that subject, in
Paris, around 1950.

I found it surprisingly candid about a plan to covertly control the contents
of history text books.  The agreement was that text books should be left in
the hands of independent publishers, in order to give the impression of
intellectual independence.  But the content of the text books would never
the less remain centrally controlled, because governments would control
examinations, and thus indirectly, and covertly, syllabuses etc.

I still have it somewhere.  It records minority dissent from the conclusion,
but does not say which country(s) dissented

If I may be so bold, there are a couple of other mysteries that have
troubled me for many years.  Not central to most interests here, so perhaps
someone will contact me off group?

1)  Shortly before this, Huxley abruptly and unexpectedly resigned as head
of UNESCO, and it moved from London to Paris.  I never found a convincing
final explanation of those events

2)  A decade later, Fernand Braudel got a million dollars from Ford for his
Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.  A Ford official involved has
since claimed this was awarded for political rather than academic purposes.
 An early student there has mentioned that Braudel wrote his syllabus with
the help of Paul Lazarsfeld.  If that is correct, what was PL's
qualification to write a syllabus primarily concerning economic history?

Rob Tye, York, UK