In his book about the start of the First World War, Max Hastings discusses the incredible rate of change – new technologies, ideas, social forces – that were in play in the opening decades of the last century. Reflecting, in 1930, on how dramatic the changes in the world were Winston Churchill said:
Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent or vital has lasted. Everything I was sure – or taught to be sure – was impossible, has happened.
Whether for useful perspective or rhetorical symmetry, many are drawing parallels between 2014 and 1914 – rising superpowers, faltering hegemonies, world order in flux, communications technology muddling old certainties about the relationships between creaking elites and restless populaces.
Regardless of how similar today is to that terrible year, it is clear that there’s nothing very new about rapid, disruptive, global change. We need to be looking back as well as forward as we face our own challenges and opportunities.
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