I don’t think there’s much doubt that 1989 was the best year of my life. Not so much for me personally, but for the world. True, there aren’t many contenders for that bauble, but even if there were 1989 would be tough to beat. In fact, 1989 was probably the last and best year of the brutal short twentieth century.
Matt Welch explains why:
The consensus Year of Revolution for most of our lifetimes has been 1968, with its political assassinations, its Parisian protests, and a youth-culture rebellion that the baby boomers will never tire of telling us about. But as the preeminent modern Central European historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote in a 2008 essay, 1989 “ended communism in Europe, the Soviet empire, the division of Germany, and an ideological and geopolitical struggle…that had shaped world politics for half a century.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in