DISCUSSION DETAILS:
In the aftermath of the Cold War the United States went through yet another series of changes, both internationally and domestically. In international affairs, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US remained the world's only superpower. Consequently, the US used that status to promote globalization in the form of neoliberal economic reforms in other countries. But the spread of a global capitalist and secular consumerist cultures often eroded the sovereign authority of nation-states who could no longer control the flows of people, information, money, and products. Additionally, in the absence of East-West ideological conflicts, which had defined the Cold War, the post-Cold War era witnessed the release of ethnic and religious reactions to globalization which produced instabilities, hostilities, and conflicts.
DISCUSSION QUESTION
Within the United States, the 1990s saw the rise of the "culture war" which created stark political divisions among different segments of the American population, many of these divisions are still characteristic of America in the third decade of the Twenty-First Century. What was the "culture war"? What was its connection to the rise of globalization in the 1990s? How did group "identity politics" come to define America's consciousness in the era between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the War on Terror in 2001?