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Post-modernity and the end of the Cold War: has war been disinvented?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Christopher Coker
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Extract

At the end of the Second World War, Arnold Toynbee sat down to complete the last volume of his magnus opus, A Study of History. What was his main conclusion? That the world had just entered the last phase of Western history—the ‘post-modern’ era, an age that would be marked by anxiety and despair. A Study of History has gone the way of all meta-historical studies. Toynbee himself is now less regarded than Oswald Spengler. But if he is remembered for nothing else, it might be for giving a name—post-modernity—to a concept with which we are still coming to terms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 189 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1992

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