ECF partner Nexus Institute is organising their yearly conference in Amsterdam on 12 November 2016.

In 1938 Giuseppe Borgese, together with Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch and Reinhold Neibuhr, among others, published the manifesto The City of Man. A declaration on World Democracy, in which he calls on intellectuals to take responsibility for the state of the world. In less than a hundred pages, they envisage the steps which must be taken after the war to create an actual, lasting, new humanist world order.

In the decades that followed, their confidence appeared to be justified. The democratic forces overcame totalitarianism; the United Nations and other international organisations were created to settle conflicts by peaceful means; a universal declaration of human rights was endorsed; globalisation reduced international poverty; scientific and technological advances offered humankind mastery of its own destiny; the end of history could be proclaimed. But in today’s world, extremism, fanaticism and barbarism surface in every corner of the planet. More and more authoritarian regimes emerge. Is the dream of a humane world an illusion after all? What is the defect in our civilisation? What will save the world?