The National Interest
Fall 2001

1945 and All That

by John Lukacs

 

. . . During the last half-century it was not only the political configuration of the world that changed; so has the very texture of history, including changes in the structure of societies. The result is that historians must deal not only with what has been happening, but also with how. There exists an amazingly persistent interest in history (one of the very few encouraging phenomena at a time of overall intellectual decay). Yet seldom do historians consider these mutations adequately. Contemporary history flourishes as well as ever (consider only the plethora of histories of the Vietnam war). Yet even in massive volumes such as Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy something is missing. Its very title is inaccurate, since international relations have come to amount to something wider and deeper than the relations of states, which is what "diplomacy" has meant since the 15th century. The relationships of nations have become important, often even more important than the relations of states; in any event, the two sorts of relationships have become inseparable. The dominant popular force in the world is still nationalism, which has proved to be much more important and enduring than ideology. (In many contemporary historical interpretations of the Cold War the recognition of this is still wanting.) This phenomenon is worldwide.

Consequently, not only the global geographic scope but the very historical analysis of the world since 1945 presents an enormous task to a historian. Philip Bell’s book is, in this respect, near encyclopedic and admirable. The World Since 1945 sounds like a grandiloquent title; but its content is fitting. This book ought to be a principal text in courses on contemporary history, and certainly for students of international relations (which, as suggested above, is an inaccurate term, dealing with the relations of states and governments and not of nations; but, then, the United Nations, too, is a booming misnomer, being an organization of governments and states, not of nations). . . .