ABSTRACT
What sets one event apart as a critical moment in history while another features as a side-bar to a larger story and a third is relegated to the footnotes? Timing factors in important ways and so do the personalities involved, but there is much more to it than that. Certain events effect profound changes and thus become critical moments. Sometimes those changes are immediately apparent but more often they become manifest over the longer term. Furthermore, what was originally a seemingly insig nificant moment can gain added or new importance in light of subsequent developments. Other events are of such a scale or are so unprecedented that they cannot but attain historical stature. Still others resonate with ordinary people in ways that transcend time and place or that render them a metaphor for their age. Yet other events are so ambiguous in their meanings and significance as to be “multivocal.” Open to diverse and even contradictory “readings” or interpretations, they speak to different people in remarkably different ways and can thus be deployed in support of a wide variety of political, economic, and social agendas.
