| This dissertation examines the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) 1957 to 1966 Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values, a project which embodied UNESCO's core mandate---to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men by increasing international understanding. Discourse surrounding the initiation and execution of the project provides the framework for analysis of contemporaneous interpretations of culture and its potential for employment as an instrument of peace, while simultaneously providing insight into the play of the essentialist concepts of East and West in a multivalent setting.; Reviewing selected project activities, the paper locates the strong and weak points of the Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values when considered in its contemporary intellectual and geopolitical surroundings. The selective flexibility with which program activities were facilitated during the project demonstrates diverse and, at times, conflicting visions. Though the project's overall success was questioned because of its diffuse results, the holistic approach which propelled it beyond the essentialist categories of East and West also led to the development of the current UNESCO initiatives working to promote dialogue in the face of resurgent cultural fundamentalism. |
