01e: Conclusions

I am a child of the Cold War generation. I grew up on the side of the world populated by the good guys, who followed America's quest for peace, prosperity, and freedom. I was taught to fear and loathe the bad guys on the opposite side of the world, who fought alongside the Soviet Union to bankrupt and bring down free, peace-loving people like us and our friends. The gym of every school I ever attended was also built to serve as a fallout shelter, and I was instructed in the proper technique for diving under my desk and covering my head just in case those crazy Russians dropped an H-bomb on Carrollton Elementary School in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

As the 1970s rolled around, I came to see the Cold War more as a struggle between governments than between good guys and bad guys. I discovered, among other things, that the Soviet government was just as awful as advertised, and possibly more so. But the people of the Soviet Union themselves seemed more and more to be people just like us, doing the best they could to make their life a little better under trying circumstances. As I learned more about American politics and America's role in world affairs, I became more skeptical about American government. I graduated from high school in what I call the Age of Malaise. The Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the energy crisis, the hostage situation in Iran - these events made it impossible for me to assume automatically that the U.S. government was right, ethical , or even competent.

By the time the Soviet Union began to crumble visibly in 1989, I had earned a doctorate in Classical Languages. I was in my second year of teaching Latin and Ancient Greek at Southwest Missouri State University. My intellectual life was pretty much focused on my academic career: my teaching (which has always come first) and my scholarship on ancient Roman oratory. I was astonished but delighted to see the "Evil Empire" of my youth disintegrate before the world's very eyes. I took a scholarly interest in comparing the Soviet world's fall to the fall of the Roman Empire. But I refrained from joining those who took a victory lap over Communism's demise. Nor was I convinced by those theorists who boldly claimed that history as we knew it had ended. Somehow I suspected that the world had not begun an unstoppable march toward democracy and market capitalism. Not that I had any clue about what would happen. I just believe that history as anyone knows it will never be over.

In fact, you and I are living in history. Moreover, we are a part of history. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are proof. Reasonable people may disagree about what changed and what to do about the changes, but America will never be the same.  As I say these words in fall 2006, these attacks are five years in our past; America is still struggling with both the causes of these attacks and their consequences. I am confident that our nation will prevail, but I am not necessarily convinced. The people of the Roman Empire were confident in the day, as were the people of the Byzantine Empire, the Russian Empire, and those of the Soviet Union. And now they are all gone. America's future is in fact far from guaranteed. To me, the Public Affairs Mission call on the entire Missouri State University community to act on this principle. To take proper action, we have to understand America's challenges as best we can. It is my hope that you will find "Rise and Fall of Superpowers" a means toward that important end.