Too Soon To Tell

Great Britain lost the North American colonies following the American Revolution. However, it was the Civil War that changed mind-sets of the population and initiated the transformation of the country into a nation. The French Revolution (1789 – 1799) disrupted and transformed France. Traditional Chinese culture was disrupted by the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976) but time may prove this to be less transforming for China than the impact of commercial enterprise. Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lei), the Prime Minister of China during the Cultural Revolution, famously responded to a question about the historical effect of the French Revolution that it was “too soon to tell”. World War I was broadly disruptive but its contribution to transformation was to set the stage for World War II.