The ‘End of History’?

Abstract

Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ image (1989) epitomized the triumphalist mood in the United States as the opening of the Berlin Wall led to the rush of events which culminated in the breakup of the Soviet Union.² In a crude sense the ‘end of history’ was taken to signify the end of the great twentieth-century conflicts: the triumph of liberal democracy over communism held out the prospect of a peaceful ‘new world order’ in line with the liberal vision of Woodrow Wilson.

The author would like to thank the members of the workshop on Metaphors for our Time: Contending Images of World Politics, held at the Australian National University in Canberra, April 1999, Ursula Vollerthun, and the editors, Greg Fry and Jacinta O’Hagan, for their comments.