Antoni Segura explains the construction of today's world in a reference work for historiography
The year 1945 marked the beginning of a new international order. Devastated by two world wars, the world was embarking on a recovery marked by rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the end of the 20th century, with the acceleration of the decolonization process, the fall of the communist bloc and the political transition in Eastern Europe, globalization spread to a planetary scale. Since then, the world has increasingly tilted towards the East, which has progressively challenged the liberal system and the US hegemony. Wars, and new and old conflicts, have made the Earth a more insecure place, and unrestrained financial capitalism has become the linchpin of a predatory system that threatens the survival of the species.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of a new international order. Devastated by two world wars, the world was embarking on a recovery marked by rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the end of the 20th century, with the acceleration of the decolonization process, the fall of the communist bloc and the political transition in Eastern Europe, globalization spread to a planetary scale. Since then, the world has increasingly tilted towards the East, which has progressively challenged the liberal system and the US hegemony. Wars, and new and old conflicts, have made the Earth a more insecure place, and unrestrained financial capitalism has become the linchpin of a predatory system that threatens the survival of the species.
But how did we get here? The volume is organized in eleven chapters that carefully unravel the course of the planet's history from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day. Starting with a detailed chronicle of the contemporary era, El món d'avui. De la guerra freda als reptes de la interdependència global offers the keys to understand our immediate past in order not to repeat its mistakes and to find new ways to overcome the complex challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.
Antoni Segura i Mas (Barcelona, 1952) is a professor of Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona, president of the Center for International Studies and Documentation in Barcelona (CIDOB) and a member of the Advisory Council of the European Institute of the Mediterranean. He has been the director and deputy director of the Center for International Historical Studies (CEHI) and a member of the advisory councils of Casa Árabe, the Democratic Memorial and the Governing Board of the International Catalan Institute for Peace. In recent years he has published Estados Unidos, el Islam y el nuevo orden mundial. De la crisis de los rehenes de 1979 a la primavera árabe (2013) and has co-edited Soldiers, Bombs and Rifles: Military History of the 20th Century (2013) and Pro-Independence Movements in the Basque Country and Catalonia (2023). He has given courses and lectures at various universities and is a regular contributor to the media.
This is the latest title in the collection of the Center for International Historical Studies (CEHI-UB), which aims to deepen the study of the contemporary history of Catalonia and Spain through research projects, courses and publications. Some of the latest books published in this collection are Centenari de la revolució russa (1917-2017), edited by Andreu Mayayo, José Manuel Rúa and Antoni Segura, and La dictadura franquista: la institucionalització d’un règim, directed by Antoni Segura, Andreu Mayayo and Teresa Abelló.
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