The Financial Times [Opinion]: Time to herald the Age of Responsibility (26 January 2009)

By Robert Zoellick, 26/01/09, (Financial Times): Historians have divided western history into epochs that represent the cultural, economic and political values of the time. Thus we have the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Age of Reason. How will the first half of the 21st century be defined? Will it be an Age of Reversal, as countries retreat into national solutions behind national borders, taking their memories of prosperity with them? Will it be an Age of Intolerance as immigrants and foreigners are blamed for rising unemployment? Or will it be simply The Decline, as stark as it is terse? It could and should be the Age of Responsibility, as President Barack Obama rightly identified. To make it so will require changed attitudes and co-operative policies in the US and around the world.

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