That was the reaction of most Americans as they watched Russian leader Vladimir Putin breach the territorial integrity of another sovereign nation, Ukraine. You could almost feel the shock emanating from the TV screen when you heard former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's take on Putin's grab: "It's what Hitler did back in the Thirties." Clinton's personal shock was twofold. First, Clinton was shocked that Putin would dare to move into Ukraine. Second, she was shocked to find herself evoking WWII. What holds for Clinton holds for the general public. Today many people disdain historical imagery as tacky. And they think of nations such as Russia, China and Germany only in present terms, with little regard to what took place before, say, 1989 (or even in 1989, i.e., Tiananmen Square). That year the scholar Francis Fukuyama published the essay "The End of History?" in the journal National Interest. Fukuyama put forward the concept that the major ideological struggles were over. Editors and politicians all began to treat history as a suitcase with some embarrassing content best left-when no one is looking-on the baggage belt.
展开▼
