ABSTRACT
Until the middle of the eighties, history seemed to be gradually entering that crystalline state known as posthistoire, to use Arnold Gehlen’s term to describe that strange feeling that tout ga change mais rien ne va plus. In the iron grip of systemic constraints, all possibilities seemed to have been exhausted, all alternatives frozen dead, and all avenues still open to have become meaningless. This mood has changed in the meantime. History has become mobilized; it is accelerating, even overheating. The new problems are shifting old perspectives and, what is more important, opening up new perspectives for the future, points of view that restore our ability to perceive alternative courses of action.
