Our contemporary social and political dynamics can be understood, in part, as a recalibration after the undue optimism of the early 1990s. We witness a divisive counterpoint to what proved to be naive assumptions about common purposes, common values and shared norms. History did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall.897 Liberal multilateralism did not triumph. The upswing of globalism in the early 1990s marked a high point of both international cooperation and domestic optimism, at least within Western societies. However, the common ground on which to build has proven to be more restricted and far more fragile than it once seemed. We find ourselves in a new age of anxiety, confronting widespread populist nationalism, persistent fears of the effects of globalism, and deep worry over the economic and psychological consequences of disruptive new technologies and dominating network platforms. The twin, and interrelated, spectres of environmental catastrophe and pandemic illness hang over us. Increasing geopolitical conflict means that even the possibility of nuclear war now seems far less remote than it did five years ago.