1450  

"The certainties of the post-1945 era are now over, in particular two. (1) The United States dominated the capitalist world-economy, being the most efficient. This is no longer true. (2) The USA and the USSR were engaged in an all-encompassing 'Cold War,'which shaped all interstate relations. The Cold War is no more. Indeed, the USSR is no more. To understand what this portends, we have three relevant pasts: the past of the US hegemonic era, 1945-90; the past of liberalism as the dominant ideology of the capitalist world-system, 1789-1989; the past of capitalism as an historical system, which started in 1450 and will perhaps be no more by 2050."" --incipit "The World-System after the Cold War" (1993) by Immanuel Wallerstein