Reflecting on the transformation of world politics that occurred with the end of the Cold War, this book assesses how this change happened, how it changes our views of the past and what it suggests about the future. it also asserts that the world's problems - using examples like the Cold War, the theory of Containment and democracy - are often mere reflections of differences of ideas. Like ideas, tense political situations can change rather quickly without big means and particularly without war. This book also finds that military considerations are often substantially less relevant than economic concerns to the central issues of international politics.