UNESCO Publishing is the publishing arm of the Organization. This site presents titles currently for sale in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic published or co-published by UNESCO. These include books, multimedia (DVDs, CD-Roms, VHS videos), periodicals, and scientific maps for professionals.

Facts and Figures
Major Publishing Projects
Co-publishing and Co-producing
Authors
Bookshop

Facts and Figures

• Over 60 years of publishing
• More than 10,000 titles published
• More than 50 titles a year
• Translations in 80 languages
• 53 national distributors in 37 countries
• 162 depository libraries in 158 countries
• Annual participation in some 30 book fairs and exhibits worldwide

UNESCO Publishing is at the heart of UNESCO's role as an international publisher and operates in fact in a manner similar to an university press, making available print publications and multimedia products arising from the Organization's diverse programme activities to specialists and general readers.

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Major Publishing Projects  

Browse through some of UNESCO's unique and large-scope publishing projects in different fields of interest:

UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

The world's memory is composed of more than just kings and heroes, battles and conquests, great cathedrals and monumental undertakings. The multi-volume series of history books produced by UNESCO sheds light on human development in all its complexity and contradiction.

• History of Humanity
• General History of Africa
• History of Civilizations of Central Asia
• General History of the Caribbean
• Historia General de América Latina
• The Different Aspects of Islamic Culture

History of Humanity

All historiography is "'work in progress" and the study of the history of humanity has undergone considerable changes since the publication of UNESCO's History of Mankind. After almost fifteen years of intensive work, UNESCO has launched an entirely revised and updated edition of this major work in seven volumes. The new edition, now called History of Humanity, is a radical new work providing an account of cultural and scientific achievements in the light of new facts and methods of historiographical investigation. This major undertaking required an International Commission and the co-operation of some 450 specialists, in a great number of disciplines, from all over the world.

Co-published with Routledge

• Volume I: Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization
• Volume II: From the Third Millennium to the Seventh Century B.C.
• Volume III: From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D.
• Volume IV: From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century
• Voume V: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
• Volume VI: The Nineteenth Century
• Volume VII: The Twentieth Century

General History of Africa

One of UNESCO's most important publishing projects in the last thirty years, the General History of Africa marks a major breakthrough in the recognition of Africa's cultural heritage. Offering an internal perspective of Africa, the eight-volume work provides a comprehensive approach to the history of ideas, civilizations, societies and institutions of the African continent and interactions with other cultures. A Scientific Committee composed of 39 experts (two-thirds of them Africans) supervised the contribution of some 350 authors from different disciplines.

Main edition: co-published with Heinemann and the University of California Press. Abridged edition: co-published with James Currey and the University of California Press.

• Volume I: Methodology and African Prehistory
• Volume II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa
• Volume III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century
• Volume IV: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century
• Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century
• Volume VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880's
• Volume VII: Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935
• Volume VIII: Africa since 1935

History of Civilizations of Central Asia

Despite the major role played by Central Asia in shaping the history of the past and of today, this vast region, stretching from the Caspian Sea to Mongolia and western China, had not been studied as a whole cultural entity in time and space.

This six-volume History of Civilizations of Central Asia, published in English, is the first attempt to present a comprehensive picture of the cultures that flourished and vanished at the heart of the Eurasian area from the dawn of civilization to the present day.

Based on a wealth of archaeological materials and written by a distinguished team of specialists, many of them native to the region, this History sheds new light on the fabulous cultural heritage of lands that were shaped by the movements of peoples and varied civilizations, and that are at the centre of growing international interest.

• Volume I: The Dawn of Civilization: Earliest Times to 700 B.C.
• Volume II: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250
• Volume III: The Crossroads of Civilization: A.D. 250 to 750
• Volume IV: The Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century
  • Part One: The Historical, Social and Economic Setting
  • Part Two: The Achievements
• Volume V: Development in Contrast: from the Sixteenth to the Mid-nineteenth Century
• Volume VI: Towards the Contemporary Period: From the Mid-nineteenth to the End of the Twentieth Century

General History of the Caribbean

Major six-volume project covers the historical experience of the peoples and societies of the Caribbean region from the earliest times to the present. Co-published with Macmillan

• Volume I: Autochtonous Societies
• Volume II: New Societies: The Caribbean in the Long Sixteenth Century
• Volume III: The Slave Societies of the Caribbean
• Volume IV: The Long Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth Century Transformations
• Volume V: The Caribbean in the Twentieth Century
• Volume VI: Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean

General History of Latin America

Available only in Spanish

La Historia General de América Latina es un proyecto intelectual de vasto alcance que la UNESCO desarrolla con miras a dotar a la comunidad académica internacional de la primera historia de la región escrita con un enfoque genuinamente universal.

Obra científica de largo aliento, se trata de una historia de ideas y civilizaciones, sociedades e instituciones que cubre la evolución de las sociedades latinoamericanas desde la época precolombina hasta el siglo XX.

Los nueve volúmenes que forman esta obra son el resultado del trabajo de unos 240 historiadores y expertos, bajo la égida de un Comité Científico Internacional formado por destacados investigadores y eruditos del mundo entero. Coeditado con Trotta (Madrid)

• Volumen I: Las sociedades originarias
• Volumen II: El primer contacto y la formación de nuevas sociedades
• Volumen III - Tomo 1: Consolidación del orden colonial
• Volumen III - Tomo 2: Consolidación del orden colonial
• Volumen IV: Procesos americanos hacia la redefinición colonial
• Volumen V: La crisis estructural de las sociedades implantadas
• Volumen VI: La construcción de las naciones latinoamericanas, 1820-1870
• Volumen VII: Los proyectos nacionales latinoamericanos: sus instrumentos y articulación, 1870-1930
• Volumen VIII: América Latina desde 1930
• Volumen IX: Teoría y metodología en la Historia de América Latina

The Different Aspects of Islamic Culture

A world religion since its inception in the seventh century A.D., Islam is today seeking vigorous answers to contemporary problems through its multi-faceted history. Issues of poverty and wealth, inequality and demands for political expression, and respect for diversity in a difficult world of conformity are dealt with in this series.

The study is organized along thematic rather than chronological lines. It is not necessary to read the volumes in order, and Volume II is in fact the first to have been published.

• Volume I: The Foundations of Islam (forthcoming)
• Volume II: The Individual and Society in Islam
• Volume III: The Spread of Islam Throughout the World
• Volume IV: Science and Technology in Islam
  • Part I: The Exact and Natural Sciences
  • Part II: Technology and Applied Sciences
• Volume V: Culture and Learning in Islam
• Volume VI: Islam in the World Today (forthcoming)

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Co-publishing and Co-producing

UNESCO publishes books, multimedia and audiovisual materials in the six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French,Russian and Spanish). Co-publication represents about 60% of the books and journals, and co-production some 90% of the Cd-Roms, video and documentary films. UNESCO publications and audiovisual works are also translated into some fifty languages.

Co-publishing, translation licensing and co-production agreements with institutions, commercial publishers and producers in different countries render UNESCO's work more readily available to larger audiences throughout the world. UNESCO Publishing attends the major international book and audiovisual fairs, where suitable partners for the co-publishing, licensing and co-production ventures are contacted.

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Authors

Publications issued by UNESCO Publishing are closely related to the Organization's programme, approved by Member States at the General Conference every two years. Although most books are collective works written by experts in different countries, a few titles are also commissioned to specific leading specialists on a given subject related to one of UNESCO's fields of competence.

The UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, created in 1948, is an exception to the other publishing activities. Major literary works translated by UNESCO into widespread languages such as English, French and Spanish thus contribute to the dissemination of the world's literary heritage. Major traditional and contemporary literary works published in this series include an impressive list of authors, among them six Nobel Prize winners: Vicente Aleixandre, Ivo Andritch, Henri Bergson, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Yasunari Kawabata, Halldor K. Laxness, Octavio Paz and George Seferis.

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Bookshop

The UNESCO Publishing bookshop proposes all sales publications in stock, plus a large philatelic and numismatic collection, not sold online for the time being, as well as a growing UNESCO-related gifts section.

Open from Monday to Friday
9-1 pm and 2.15-6 pm

UNESCO Headquarters
7, place de Fontenoy
75352 PARIS 07 SP, FRANCE

Tel. (France): 01 45 68 22 22
Tel. (outside France): (+33) 1 45 68 22 22

Fax (France): 01 45 67 16 90
Fax (outside France): (+33) 1 45 67 16 90

website: www.unesco.org/publishing