Your World on CD ROM (UN and NATO Documents)

What's likely to happen next in Iraq or in the Balkans? What issues matter most in Europe or Africa? Is there any way out of the recurring pattern of terror, retaliation, and war in Israel or in Kashmir? What challenges do Russia and Eastern Europe face? What patterns of crisis and crisis management do we see emerging in the post-Cold War world? Does nuclear disarmament finally have a chance? What steps might bring us closer to enduring peace and/or to a world with more wide-spread prosperity, less ethnic hatred, and greater respect for humanitarian values? If questions like these matter to you, go to the original sources -- 4657 documents from the UN and NATO assembled in easy-to-use form on CD.

This CD contains background texts that can help you understand the implications of current world trends, crises, and issues, including 3371 documents from the UN and 1286 documents from NATO.

Intended for use with PCs (Windows or Linux) and recent Macs (OS X), our books (except for some UN documents) are in plain-text format, not audio or video. You read them on your computer screen.

Questions? If Richard Seltzer, who created this CD, is online now, you can chat with him immediately by clicking on his photo (below). If he is offline, you can send him an email by clicking on his photo.

Updated September 27, 2003, the UN material includes basic facts about the organization and its history, plus Security Council Resolutions (1946-2003) , Secretary-General Reports to the Security Council (1994-2003), Reports of Missions of the Security Council (1992-2003) , Secretariat documents (annual reports and other reports of the Secretary-General 1992-2002), and General Assembly Resolutions since September 11, 2001.

The NATO material includes the historical documents which established the organization's role and structure and which set its future direction in the post-Soviet era, plus the massive NATO Handbook, descriptions of NATO-related historical events, Fact Sheets, and the NATO Review (a magazine with thoughtful articles by NATO leaders and world leaders about the role and future of the organization, 1991-2003).

Many of the documents included here are in plain text format. Some, however, are only available in .pdf format and can be read on your computer screen or printed using the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader.

This CD includes the full text of thousands of documents, organized for easy access. To get started, you just open the index document in either Word or a Web browser. (For instance, you can click on My Computer, then on your CD drive, then on index.html) From the index document, you can click to a major section (like UN Security Council Resolutions), then click on an individual item to see the full text in your browser.

The entries in the index (including Security Council Resolutions) have descriptions, not just arbitrary numbers. That means that you can use the search/find function in your browser or word processor to quickly find whatever documents you want. For instance, if you are interested in "Palestine" or "Afghanistan" or "Bosnia", you can search for that, repeatedly, to get to all the relevant UN and NATO documents on that topic. Just use the "find" function in your browser (under Edit/Find in both Netscape and IE). You can also use that same capability to find any word or phrase within any of the documents.

This CD was compiled for Global Education Motivators (GEM), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in close association with the United Nations Department of Public Information. For details about GEM, please see their Web site at www.gem-ngo.org GEM provides a variety of programs to "Bring the World into the Classroom" and supports them with various resources such as "Your United Nations".

You can see the detailed table of contents of this CD (a massive document, over 110 pages single-spaced if you printed it out) at www.samizdat.com/unnatocd.html

Review of this CD at Large Print Reviews: www.largeprintreviews.com/yourworld.html