Historical Perspectives: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW?

One reason people study the past is to provide insight into the future. And even though predictions are risky, people continue to make them.

Optimism After Communism Inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union, some intellectuals felt hopeful. In his provocatively titled 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama posited that history as people knew it was over. He argued that democracy was the ideal form of government and capitalism was the best economic system, and they were spreading throughout the world. Eventually, all countries would adopt them, and the political and economic conflicts that had driven wars in the past would vanish. Critics of Fukuyama argued he was wrong, just as Karl Marx had been in the 19th century when he also argued that people were entering the final phase of history.

Cultural Conflict One of Fukuyama’s former teachers, Samuel Huntington, rejected the entire end-of-history argument. In response, he wrote The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). While Fukuyama was influenced by the end of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, Huntington was struck by the increasing tensions around religion and culture. He contended that people’s beliefs and affiliations would draw the fault lines for conflicts in the post-Cold War world. Huntington cited several examples of cultural conflict, including Hindu and Muslim tensions in India and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and its hostility toward Western culture.

Cultural Understanding Critics asserted

that Huntington’s generalizations were oversimplified and reflected a pro-Western prejudice. One of these critics is Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. In his 2006 work, Identities and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, Sen rejected Huntington’s suggestion that people of different beliefs and ethnic groups could not get along, pointing to the existence of peaceful diverse societies around the world. Further, as globalization spread through all parts of life, people found many ways to identify themselves in the 21st century besides by religion and ethnicity.

Hope in Technology Debates over the post-Cold War world began before the Internet and smartphones were common. By 2011, technology was connecting people around the globe. When physicist Michio Kaku published Physics of the Future (2011), he was optimistic that technology and trade could break down the cultural barriers. He held out hope for material abundance and greater peace.

Develop an Argument: Evaluate the extent to which historical evidence supports one of the perspectives of the future of world history.