needs to be created? ‘Communism’ too has lost
precise meaning. Communism in China today is
very different from the communism of thirty years
ago, now that private enterprises are flourishing.
Labels change their meaning. Nor do simple
slogans provide the answers.
At the beginning of the twentieth century one
could believe that a better world was gradually
emerging. History was the story of progress. For
some this meant that socialist ideals would lead to
a utopia before the century had come to an end. In
mid-century that faith in human progress and in
the inevitable march of civilisation was shattered.
The power of National Socialism and its destruc-
tive master-race doctrine were broken; it was the
end of an evil empire but not the end of tyranny.
The horrors, corruption and inefficiency of autoc-
racy, with its denial of humanity, lie exposed.
As the world moves from the twentieth to the
twenty-first century old conflicts are fading and
new ones taking shape. Europe, so long a crucible
of global conflict, is coming together; war in the
West is unthinkable and conflicts with the East
have been overcome. In Europe the nation states
have voluntarily pooled their national independ-
ence, in the economic sphere most completely,
and in foreign relations imperfectly. The US has
gained the position as the only global military
superpower, though this does not give it limitless
control. The Cold War that dominated so much
of the second half of the twentieth century world-
wide is over, the Soviet Union has normalised its
relations with the rest of the world, and the rest
of the world with it. But much of the Middle East
and Africa remains unreconstructed, in a stage of
transition, divided and in conflict. Ideological
extremists have tried to create new divisions
between Muslim culture and Western culture but,
though able to create powerful impacts, represent
a minority of the Muslim world. A new feature is
that conflict is no longer necessarily based on
clashes between nation states. Terrorist organisa-
tions act transnationally and cause havoc with the
weapons of today’s technologies, whether planes
filled with fuel, hand-held missiles or biological
weapons. Weapons of mass destruction can be
stored by small nations and could fall into the
wrong hands. Nuclear weapons have proliferated
as well as missiles and are no longer the preserve
of the most powerful.
The US also remains the most powerful econ-
omy, Japan the second, after stagnating for a
decade, began to recover in 2004. China is trans-
forming, pointing to the growth of a powerful
economy later in the twenty-first century. The
world has learnt that it benefits all to conduct
trade with a minimum of barriers though many
remain to be removed. Standards of living have
risen with technological progress beyond what
generations a hundred years ago could have
dreamt of. Medical progress in the developed
world has increased life expectancy. But the world
is one of even more extremes. The developed
world is prosperous and the worst of poverty ban-
ished. But the majority of people in Africa, Latin
America and eastern Asia remain sunk in poverty,
only small groups enjoying a, generally corrupt,
high life with little social conscience for the rest.
Famine remains widespread and in parts of the
world such as sub-Saharan Africa AIDS is ravaging
the people. The rich world’s help for the poor is
wholly inadequate still, but without reform, such
aid as is provided frequently does not reach those
most in need of it. There are huge global problems
that remain to be addressed in the twenty-first cen-
tury, not least among them the deterioration of
the global environment. How successfully they
will be addressed in the decades to come remains
shrouded from contemporary view.
Having considered just some of the changes in
the world between the opening of the twentieth
and the twenty-first centuries, the chapters that
follow will recount the tumultuous history
between.
1
PROLOGUE 13
