>
> You're serious this time, right Charlie? :-) I have to disagree with
> this too, I'm afraid. Dan M. and I have had a prolonged dicussion on
> this topic, but I can't recall if it was on or off-list. Perhaps he
> can. Let me paraphrase (I don't have the exact quote sitting in front
> of me, but my memory is usually fairly accurate, so I'll be really
> close to the actual words) one of my professors, from a lecture in his
> intro. course on international relations:
>
> In the late 1970s, American political scientists engaged in a
> prolonged debate on whether the Cold War would end within a decade or
> so because of the total collapse of one of the two Superpowers. What
> they were debating, though, was whether the _United States_ would
> collapse, not the Soviet Union.
Not talking about the 70's. My history goes up to WW2, with only military
history in anthing other than outline detail after that, my personal memory
starts in about 1976-7. Remember the oil crisis, and black-outs in London...
I'm talking about that time of glasnost and perestroika, late 80s, when
things were changing at an amazing rate across Europe. The world was hugely
optimistic then, something that has been tempered by cynicism since.
Charlie
