In the decade following the end of the Cold War, Western democracies stood victorious, brimming with optimism and grand designs. Today, the 1990s look less like a great triumph for liberal democracy and Western modernity than a decade in which post-Cold War excitement and anticipation obscured a slowly gathering global storm. At a time of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, economic nationalism, and ideological extremism, Rethinking the 1990s brings together a group of leading political scientists and historians who look back on that era of world-historical change to identify choices and pathways that have brought the world to this unsettled moment. Authors explore whether the United States and other countries could have made different choices in the 1990s to place the world order then envisioned by Western policymakers on a firmer foundation.

Written in a highly engaging style, these wide-ranging essays offer new insight into the strategic choices, political trade-offs, and missed opportunities of that historic decade as well as much-needed perspective on the international pressures and domestic cross-pressures fracturing the liberal order today.