Between Two Ages [antikvár]

Introduction Perhaps the time is past for the comprehensive "grand" vision. In some ways, it was a necessary substitute for ignorance, a compensation in breadth for the lack of depth in man's understanding of his world. But even if this is so, the result of more knowledge may be greater ignorance—or, at least, the feeUng of ignorance—about where we are and where we are heading, and particularly where we should head, than was true when in fact we knew less but thought we knew more. I am not sure that this need be so. In any case, I am not satisfied with the fragmented, microscopic understanding of the parts, and I feel the need for some—even if crude—approximation of a larger perspective. This book is an effort to provide such a perspective. It is an attempt to define the meaning—within a dynamic framework—of a major aspect of our contemporary reality: the emerging global political process which increasingly blurs the traditional distinctions between domestic and international politics. In working toward that definition, I shall focus particularly on the meaning for the United States of the emergence of this process, seeking to draw implications from an examination of the forces that are molding it. Time and space shape our perception of reality. The specific moment and the particular setting dictate the way international estimates and priorities are defined. Sometimes, when the moment is historically "ripe," the setting and the time may coalesce to provide a special insight. A perceptive formula is easier to articulate in a moment of special stress. Conditions of war, crisis, tension are in that sense particularly fertile. The situation of crisis permits