What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?FOCUS QUESTIONS
• What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration
in the aftermath of the Cold War?
• What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s?
• What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
• How did a divisive political partisanship affect the election of 2000?
• Why did Al Qaeda attack the United States on September 11, 2001?FROM TRIUMPH
TO TRAGEDY
★ CHAPTER 27 ★
1989–2001
T
he year 1989 was one of the most momentous of the twentieth century.
In April, tens of thousands of student demonstrators occupied Tianan-
men Square in the heart of Beijing, demanding greater democracy in China.
Workers, teachers, and even some government officials joined them, until their
numbers swelled to nearly 1 million. Both the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev had
introduced in the Soviet Union and the example of American institutions inspired
the protesters. The students erected a figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty,
calling it “The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom.” In June, Chinese troops
crushed the protest, killing an unknown number of people, possibly thousands.
In the fall of 1989, pro- democracy demonstrations spread across eastern
Europe. Gorbachev made it clear that unlike in the past, the Soviet Union★^1071