I could have sworn the Cold War ended in the last millennium, like the Jheri Curl. Television had been invented by then and I am willing to bet that I saw it happen over the course of all the boring family newshours that bedevilled my younger youth.
Something to do with a wall in Berlin falling down which excited people. Then a guy, Francis Fukuyama, wrote a book with the most intriguing title The End of History. Premise being that liberalism had won, begone autocracy, reason would prevail. Thus taunted, history ignored him and time marched on. But for a moment the idea of an all-involving World War seemed to recede.
