Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 5 The passion for discovery, reflection and interpretation is as old as mankind. No matter the different names it has been given over time —from spiritualism to the algorithm building—, it is an endeavour that can take years; years spent pondering over a particular subject or puzzle. However, the making of institutions, codes and a large number of inventions and interpretations appears only in particular periods. These range from the period of high scholarship in China, through the Academies of Ancient Greece and the great universities in Spain and France in the Middle Ages, up to the universities of our modern age. It all required vast amounts of work and of devoted workers and scholars. This world of scholarship is today under attack, not simply large, visible attacks, but also under attack by Lilliputian deployments, thousands of small wounds. Saskia Sassen — Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 2013 Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences on 25/10/2013.