The Return of History

Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century

Jennifer Welsh

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781487001315
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Geopolitics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the 2016 CBC Massey Lectures, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and international relations specialist Jennifer Welsh delivers a timely, intelligent, and fascinating analysis of twenty-first-century geopolitics.

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Cold War dissipated, the American political commentator Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous essay, entitled "The End of History," which argued that the demise of confrontation between Communism and capitalism, and the expansion of Western liberal democracy, signalled the endpoint of humanity's sociocultural and political evolution, and the path toward a more peaceful world. But a quarter of a century after Fukuyama's bold prediction, history has returned: arbitrary executions, attempts to annihilate ethnic and religious minorities, the starvation of besieged populations, invasion and annexation of territory, and the mass movement of refugees and displaced persons. It has also witnessed cracks and cleavages within Western liberal democracies as a result of deepening economic inequality.

The Return of History argues that our own liberal democratic society was not inevitable, but that we must all, as individual citizens, take a more active role in its preservation and growth.

INDEX

abolitionist campaign, 14, 17

Abu Ghraib prison, 87–88

Additional Protocols of 1977, 63, 65, 101

Afghanistan, 178–184, 182

Africa, 4, 29, 124, 151, 160

The Age of Acquiescence (Fraser), 275

An Agenda for Peace (Boutros-Ghali), 5–6

al-Qaeda, 71, 73, 76, 86–87

American Lieber Code of 1863, 61

American War of Independence, 11

The Americans (TV show), 208–209

Amin, Hafizullah, 179

Amnesty International, 226–227

Ancient Greeks, 15, 115

Anderson, Elizabeth, 292

anti-immigration platforms, 30, 152–153, 282, 283

Arab Spring, 28–29, 49, 53, 83, 88–89, 114

Arms Trade Treaty, 102

Ash, Garton, 25

Ash, Timothy Garton, 2

al-Assad, Bashar, 83, 88–89, 94, 198, 202–203

asylum, 115–121, 168; applications, 123–124, 130–131, 142–144, 156–158; Germany, 133, 134–135; . See also refugees

Augustine, Saint, 56–57

Australia, 125

Austria, 153

authoritarian governments: Africa, 29; Syria, 83; Thailand, 25; Turkey, 25; . See also illiberal democracy

authoritarian governments, Russia, 23–24, 215; aggression, 172–176, 189, 191–192, 221–222; censorship, 225–226, 228–229; democratic legitimacy, 225, 233–234; due to economy, 223–224; elections, 226–228; historical differences, 232–233; murder, 229; propaganda, 229–2...

Table of contents

• Openers
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraph
• ONE: THE RETURN OF HISTORY
• TWO: THE RETURN OF BARBARISM
• THREE: THE RETURN OF MASS FLIGHT
• FOUR: THE RETURN OF COLD WAR
• FIVE: THE RETURN OF INEQUALITY
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• The CBC Massey Lectures Series
• Love the Massey Lectures? There's an app for that!