Reading the New Global Order: Textual Transformations of 1989

1989 bore witness to a number of seismic events; The fall of the Berlin Wall, protests at Tiananmen Square, the US invasion of Panama, and many more. These notable moments inspired an array of visual, sonic and literary texts that can tell us much about this watershed moment. This edited collection examines these products of 1989 to explore the sense of transformative immediacy, which defined this memorable year, and show how the events of 1989 set the path for the 21st century.

Gathering together scholars across a range of disciplines, Reading the New Global Order examines specific texts to reveal key transnational issues of that year, and to highlight fundamental questions about the nature and significance of 1989 as a global moment. From speeches, manifestos and novellas, to a pop album, this book raises questions about what constitutes a ’text’ in the study of history and what they can reveal about their point in time. Taken together, these chapters highlight 1989 as a cultural, intellectual and political landmark of the 20th century through the global events it saw and the texts it produced.

Kirrily Freeman is Associate Professor of History at Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax, Canada. Her publications include Bronzes to Bullets: Vichy and the Destruction of French Public Statuary, 1940-1944 (2009) and Reading the Postwar Future: Textual Turning Points from 1944 (Bloomsbury, 2019), co-edited with John Munro.

John Munro is Lecturer in United States History at the University of Birmingham, UK. His publications include The Anticolonial Front: The African American Freedom Struggle and Global Decolonization, 1945-1960 (2017) and Reading the Postwar Future: Textual Turning Points from 1944 (Bloomsbury, 2019), co-edited with Kirrily Freeman.