ABSTRACT
There has been much talk as we pass into the third millennium that we have reached the end of the story. I am not just referring to the usual millennial fantasies of apocalypse and anarchy, but to a general sentiment of slackening and senselessness. The old Master Narratives – of Judaeo-Christian redemption, Revolutionary Liberation or Enlightenment Progress – are for many no longer engaging Western imagination and belief. And it is in this climate that we find frequent talk of the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama), coinciding with pronouncements about the ‘end of ideology’ (Bell) and the ‘end of the story’ (Baudrillard; or from a positivist perspective, Hempel).
