The end of the ColdWar was an event of great significance in human history, the consequences ofwhich demand to be glossed in broad terms rather than reduced to a meaninglessseries of events. Neorealist writers on international relations would disagree;most such see the end of the Cold War in terms of the collapse of a bipolarbalance of power system and its (temporary) replacement by the hegemony of thewinning state, which in turn will be replaced by a new balance. There isobviously a story to be told here, they would argue, but not a new kind of story,nor a particularly momentous one. Such shifts in the distribution of power are amatter of business as usual for the international system. The end of the Cold War wasa blip on the chart of modern history and analysts of international politics(educated in the latest techniques of quantitative and qualitative analysis inthe social sciences) ought, from this perspective, to be unwilling to drawgeneral conclusions on the basis of a few, albeit quite unusual, events. Suchmodesty is, as a rule, wise, but on this occasion it is misplaced. The Cold Warwas not simply a convenient shorthand for conflict between two superpowers, asthe neorealists would have it. Rather it encompassed deep-seated divisions aboutthe organization and content of political, economic and social life at alllevels.