ABSTRACT
On November 4th 1989, half a million people marched in East Berlin to demand freedom of the press and freedom to travel. A plan was drawn up by the Communist Party leadership in the GDR for a new travel law that would allow free movement to all countries, with the State using passports and exit visas to control the flow. The disappearance of the West's principal antagonist led many to anticipate the possibility of an end to global conflict. In the immediate aftermath of 1989, it had become possible to think that geopolitical conflict was waning; liberal democracy seemed to have defeated all opposition, perhaps especially on its own territory. Fukuyama's text became the intellectual loadstar of this post-Cold-War “new world order”.
