Hard Times?

What an exciting and worrisome time to be alive. As Charles Dickens observed of an earlier age: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...' And how especially enthralling for Marxist historians – that is, for those of us whose comprehension of the making of socialism is that it entails the extension and refinement of the classical ideals of the Age of Revolution: liberty, equality and democratic community.

The collapse of Communism, of the Soviet bloc or empire, and the related termination of the Cold War dramatically revise the contemporary world and our sense of possibility and anxiety about the future (I write as the US and Britain are engaged in war in the Persian Gulf' and the Soviets are threatening serious repression ' in the Baltic Republics). These developments will, and should, have a significant impact on the writing of history. Of course, this will be so far more in certain fields – eg, Soviet and Eastern European studies, American foreign and military affairs – than in others.