restored quadriga atop Brandenburg Gate by quapan
The past year effectively marked the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Cold War, that nearly half century-long conflict between the West and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. This tension, primarily between the United States and the Soviet Union, decided much in world politics for the latter half of the 20th century. However, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the world entered the 1990s with this defining hostility behind it, bringing to the fore existential questions that had previously been answered by the continuous state of antagonism. A “new world order” was emerging in the last decade of the second millennium A.D., but what that order exactly would be was anyone’s guess.
Great thinkers soon wrote three weighty essays dealing with this new state of global affairs: “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama, “The Clash of Civilizations?” by Samuel P. Huntington, and “The Coming Anarchy” by Robert D. Kaplan. While each deals with a different social scientific discipline, their topics all relate to the shape of the world in the post-Cold War era. I have made it my goal to read, summarize, and analyze these three essays this semester, posting my summaries and analyses as future posts. As all three essays are rather lengthy, I hope these summaries will be helpful to anyone who has heard of the authors or essays and would like to be familiar with their arguments.
- Analysis of ‘The End of History’ by Francis Fukuyama
- Analysis of ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ by Samuel P. Huntington
- Analysis of ‘The Coming Anarchy’ by Robert D. Kaplan
For further reading, all three essays were later expanded into book-length publications. Find them on Amazon.com below:
