Essay on The End of the Cold War - 1634 Words

The end of the Cold War brought about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, paving the way for an unprecedented new paradigm – one characterised by the end of hostilities between the two dominant ideologies: Soviet communism and American liberal capitalism. This dominant new paradigm encouraged the homogenisation of ideas, in the form of exchanging ethos and values along former cultural, ideological and geographical divides. As such, this integration of world societies has earned the title ‘globalisation’, forcing the global community to appear so united as to warrant the metaphor of a global village. (Note: This paragraph pains me to read – I will eventually re-write it.) Few contemporary phenomena elicit such academic and†¦show more content†¦In truth, its history dates back as far as the sixteenth century, following the first great expansion of European capitalism, which resulted in slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism (Ezema, 2009). Throughout history, world powers have continually sought to perpetuate their way of life: from the philosophy and mythology of the Greeks, the political ideologies and linguistics of the Romans, and the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance (Daghrir, 2013). Thus, it comes as no surprise that the aftermath of the post-war era, which saw the collapse of Soviet communism and the emergence of the United States as the sole hegemon, saw the aggressive spread of American ideals, values, and beliefs. Indeed, just as American goods flooded world markets in the post-World War II era; American culture now penetrates every continent through the aggressive development of mass communications, trade expansio n and information technology. The nature of imperialism in the modern world has drastically changed; it has transcended from explicit military strength to economic, political, cultural and linguistic dimensions (Haque, 2011). Many anti-globalisation scholars argue that contemporary imperialist powers have turned to symbolic means of control, which are facilitated by the integration of Western-dominated global telecommunications systems and theShow MoreRelatedThe End Of Cold War2804 Words   |  12 PagesThe End of Cold War: An Analysis Cold War should be considered as one of the most important events that stirred the global political world and it should be considered as an event the end of which reshaped the socio-economic and political structure of myriads of nations across the globe. The end of the Cold War ensured the demise of the Soviet instigated communism and the rise of democracy once again. But it should be noted that just like the emergence of the Cold War the end of the Cold War was notRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War1694 Words   |  7 PagesThe end of the cold war, is often considered as marking the dawn of a fundamentally different political environment. This change in environment, has brought about new salient questions by scholars and policy makers about the relevance of nuclear weapons in the world. In his article, ‘learning to love the bomb’ Jonathan Tepperman calls president Obama’s plan to rid the world off nuclear weapons wrong, dreamy, unrealistic and a big mistake. I foun d this article interesting as it seems rather paradoxicalRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War930 Words   |  4 PagesThe end of the Cold War marks more than just the end of the arms race, between the Soviet Union and the United States, it also marks the weakening of communism. Communism, the greatest enemy to the west during the Cold War had to be put down at any cost, this meant supporting militaristic dictatorships that were against communism. The weakening of communism, however, ignited Global Democratic Revolutions in which the people sought to gain the power back from the government. These revolutions wereRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War Essay1740 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction The most important turning point in contemporary history was propitiated by the end of the Cold War, when one of the fields of the bipolar era disappeared, opening the way for a unipolar world under American imperial hegemony. The United States immediately began to use its unquestionable superiority, seeking to transfer the conflicts to the military confrontation. The apex of this policy of militarization of conflicts was in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (Missiroli, 2015). Although inRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War Essay4338 Words   |  18 PagesAbstract: This article discusses the end of the Cold War, covering the period from Reagan?s inauguration to the reunification of Germany, which marked the end of the last remnant in Europe of the Cold War. It looks at several factors that brought the conflict to a close: arms control, human rights issues, and ongoing conflicts in Latin America between the Soviet Union and the United States. The most important meetings and summits between the United States and the Soviet Union are discussed, includingRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War1435 Words   |  6 PagesDespite the hope for democracy and political stability in the last two decades, crises and armed conflicts remain a serious impediment to development in many countries. Moreover, if some specialists say that the end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s spelled the end of conflicts created through the East-West confrontation, the following years have shown the predominance of intra-state crises, thus forcing the United Nations (UN) to review its strategies for peace and security. In extremelyRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War1069 Words   |  5 PagesAt the end of the Cold War, a more widespread interest in post conflict reconstruction was becoming more prevalent. The main components of this interest during the post reconciliation period were accountability and reconciliation. To facilitate this in two different post conflict environments, two respective trib unals were established. These tribunals were known as the ICTY (The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, est.1993) and ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for RwandaRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War2747 Words   |  11 PagesThe United Nations was handed the sacred duty of, in its own words, â€Å"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.† While the UN was able to prevent another great war, and to an extent other large regional wars, it has still not met its key tenet of saving generations from the scourge of war. I believe that the UN has failed to promote peace successfully in the world, and its job as facilitator of peace hasn’t been met when countless conflicts have continued all over the globe. I believeRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War928 Words   |  4 Pages The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union were heralded by many as the end of history. Economic and political liberalism, it was argued, had triumphed over all other political and economic systems and was thus going to usher the world into an era of endless freedom and stability. This new global system, bounded by the principles of democracy and free market capitalism, was promoted as being the panacea for the liberation of the individual from the ills and control of old bureaucraciesRead MoreThe End Of The Cold War Essay2178 Words   |  9 PagesThe end of the Cold War created new dimensions for bilateral and multilateral international relations, including the U.S.-Vietnam relations. From the demand of normalizing the bilateral diplomatic ties, the U.S. detailed a four-phase roadmap in April 1991, which associated closely with resolving the Vietnam’s military involvement in the Cambodian conflict, and the U.S. prisoners of war/missing in action (POW/M IA) issue during the war in Vietnam. In 1995, the U.S. and Vietnam officially announced

Title the Outsiders- by Se Hinton Why Gangs Portrayed in...

Gangs. This is what is portrayed in SE Hinton s novel, The Outsiders. Two different gangs from opposite ends of the social ladder clash in this epic novel of social tension between two rival groups, the Socs and the Greasers. The main character, 14-year-old Ponyboy, is a Greaser who lives under the cycle of poverty and endless pressure from the Socs. They are the upper class Westside crowd who are accepted in society. The Greasers, in contrast, struggle to put food on the table and are social outcasts. SE Hinton has mentioned about gangs several times in her novel. But what really defines a gang? According to some, it is, A group of young people who spend time together for social reasons. While others define gangs as, A group of people†¦show more content†¦Turfs, are the areas in which the gangs dwell. They can be marked, but are usually known by word of mouth, as in The Outsiders. When Ponyboy and Johnny came across the drunken Socs, Ponyboy commented how this was their gro und. The Socs also acknowledged that it indeed was. The fear, or more respect, factor also applies here. The residents within a certain gang s turf usually respect the gang, or fear them. An example was when the two gangs had a showdown, Steve commented that no one would dare call the cops, because there would be a manhunt from both sides. Though they didn t urinate to mark their territory, turf is essential for a gang. The rivalry between other gangs is made prominent at the beginning of the book when Ponyboy gets jumped by a group of Socs. The feud between the Greasers and the Socs is long lived, though they are merely divided by social classes. The Greasers get jumped by the Socs for their endless amusement. When Johnny puts a Soc out of his misery, the tension increased. There are many different reasons why the rivalry may occur. One is to obtain the territory. In the text, when the Socs came to pummel Ponyboy and Johnny, Pony questioned them about being on their terrain. Another one could be just to prove themselves, which could be another rivalry established. A Social named Randy asked Ponyboy about what the fighting would prove, and Ponyboy realized that nothing was really to be proved by all

The Persistence of Memory Free Essays

Looking at the picture The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, people can see an abstract aesthetic deep within. The landscapes associated with his childhood have become an inspiration for his paintings. When he grew up, Dali still spent his time to painting the Catalonia’s landscape elaborately. We will write a custom essay sample on The Persistence of Memory or any similar topic only for you Order Now Completed in 1931, The Persistence of Memory became one of his well-known paintings. This famous artwork is called â€Å"Dali ‘s hand painted dream photographs†, and it is simultaneously read as a painting depicting landscape, still life, and self-portrait. As I find curious in this abstract, I use many researches in reference book and Internet in order to look for the meaning of this picture so far. One interesting idea is about the melting watches that inspire randomly. In one hot August afternoon in 1931, as Dali was having lunch on his work bench, suddenly an idea of paranoiac hallucinations came to his mind. He took his pencil and slid under a bit of Camembert cheese, which was softer by the heating of summer weather, and started drawing. Dali came up with an idea about the melting watches as the main subject. These soft melting watches convey Dali’s primary philosophy about the â€Å"softness† and the â€Å"hardness†. The melting watches are one symbol that is commonly associated with Salvador Dali’s Surrealism. They are literally meant to show the irrelevance of time. According to the Wikipedia website, one famous art history professor named Dawn Ades wrote, â€Å"The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order. In addition, there are some interesting subjects appearing in this painting such as the craggy rocks of Catalonia spreading out further away. This is the place where he grew up, and also indeed the association with his painting The Persistence of Memory. It shows a typical Dalinian landscape with his beloved Cape Creus (a peninsula and a headland located at Mediterranean) in the background. In the foreground, there is an orange clock at the b ottom left of the painting, which is covered in ants. Beside, the figure in the middle of the painting can be recognized as a human figure in a dream state that Dali uses to represent himself, as the artwork became a self-portrait, maybe. Looking closely as the details, we see the abstract form has one closed eye with curvy eyelashes, as it falls into a dream state. The melting clock laid on top symbolizes the passing time experienced in a dream. The bottom left of a painting usually is a death spot; people perceive a painting by reading the focus elements, then following the direction it points too. Sometimes leads to death point. But in this picture, the plate is oval to top right, leading the viewers up back to the watches that can make viewers focus on the foreground. As the technique of drawing, the painting presents a linear perspective. The tree, the table, the clocks stand out in the foreground, but they are colored with a darker color. This lets the bright yellow cliffs and the blue water shinning in the background as it helps to emphasize the landscape of Dali’s childhood. The contrast of bright and dark color also creates the intensity of â€Å"real† and imagination of the â€Å"composition† Well, in my opinion, I perceive things rights at this part because dark color means dark reality, and bright color means dreamy, but in this picture is the opposite. Dark color is unrealistic world; bright color may be his memory on the beautiful land. His reality now is dark and shallow that represents the watch is the time has passed in his life. As the choices of color, this artwork has used a bright white and blue in the top left hand corner and then fading up into the darkness. There is an orange clock in the bottom left hand corner sticks out of the brown and black foreground. The cool colors include the sky, and three melting watches that are harmony with the rest of landscape’s color. This painting represents a linear perspective. The objects in front of the piece, the tree, the clocks, the table stand out more than the objects that the artist wants the viewers to notice like the mountain, the sky, the ocean, and the rocks in the background. Even though they are the main points in this painting, they are less of focusing than the melting clocks in the foreground. Dali interpretation gives much confusion for critics and art lovers. Partly because Dali’s work is to convey a concept of two different sides: real and imagination. For example, The Persistence of Memory is a landscape painting produced based on the landscape that Dali saw in his childhood. In the background is a beach with sand and water, rock and cliffs. These details represent real subjects in life. Yet, in the foreground, there are some melting watches and an unrecognizable figure sliding over the rocks in the center of the painting. The melting watches and the strange figure can be seen as products of his imagination, and the cliffs which is a place in Catalonia depicts Dali’s childhood memory. The Persistence of Memory is named itself. It resembles for Port Lligat, the home of Salvador Dali. He tried to expose his hometown with sand, beach, branch tree, rock and cliff. Still, there are many interpretations in this painting. Some we can understand, others are hard to explain. Perhaps the images of the melting watches are really nothing more than the ideas that Dali was inspired by the Camembert cheese melt in a warm sunny day. As I find Dali’s artwork intriguing and repulsive, his painting looks really realistic, creative, and stunning. He was the person that could put the photorealistic images on a canvas. His style noted as a Surrealist, which was influenced by famous psychologist who led him to explore his fears and fantasies, or possible, a crazy idea. This is the reason I choose his artwork because through them, he brings me a new concept that looks abnormal at firs but then really intense as I discover deepen into its meanings. Salvador Dali was a great artist, a man who is not ashamed to show his feeling. Through The Persistence of Memory, I felt like it is a perfect example for Dali’s style, very surrealist and realistic. No matter what is said about the painting, this work has stood the test of time as it has a great influence on pop culture today. Salvador Dali has become an icon for a generation that is interested in the abstract and distortion of reality. How to cite The Persistence of Memory, Papers