ABSTRACT
Trauma, a buzzword of the 1990s, has been buzzing overtime. The word, derived from the Greek traumatos, means a wound; the Greeks made much of trauma in their drama, philosophy, and thinking. Trauma was central to the thinking of Sigmund Freud, who is central to any history of the twentieth century. In addition to all the usual problems, there are new ones: the uncertain effects of the new technology, the hazards involved in the new globalization, the political disarray after the first presidential impeachment in over a century. As the century ends, and much of the world struggles with war, disease, and economic depression, the United States appears to be the only candidate for world power—perhaps the only power in history to have the means for empire without the overweening desire for it.
