A New Decade of the Global Age, 1996-2006

In the early 1990s, as the Soviet system disintegrated and the three worlds of the post World War II era collapsed into one world, in political and corporate rhetoric this was the triumph not just of America and its allies, but of modern capitalism. This new world order was global and globalization was the driver of change. The selfassuredness of this narrative of change contrasted sharply with the dominant intellectual climate in the West that questioned both the assumption of an advancing modernity and the very possibility of a shared world outlook. The contradiction between this postmodern mood and the triumphalist assertion of globalization as the latest stage in Western modernity spurred some to rethink the way we write of our own time as a period in history.