Introduction

Abstract

Leaders of the seven top democratic industrial nations — the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and Canada — have met annually to discuss global problems since President Ford initiated the first get-together in 1976. Of the twelve summits to date, none was more richly symbolic of the immense changes that have occurred since 1945 than the July 1989 meeting. Hosted by President Mitterrand in Paris to coincide with his nation’s spectacular celebration of the French Revolution’s 200th anniversary, the summit straddled a year which recalled Dickens’ adage that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”