ABSTRACT
One of the most important business stories of the last 20 years was the collapse of the Soviet Union. What seemed at the time like an event primarily of political and strategic importance turned out to have profound consequences for financial markets and businesses everywhere. It transformed the structure of Europe’s most powerful economy, Germany, in a way that was to have enormous consequences for all its neighbors. Directly or indirectly, it opened the doors of countries around the world that had previously been closed to foreign trade and international companies. It turned the United States into the unchallenged global superpower and marked the start of a period in which the American brand of capitalism swept across the world.
