We currently live, in the words of the memorable opening lines of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, in ‘the worst of times’, a ‘season of darkness’. Yet, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, can there be a ‘spring of hope’, an ‘age of wisdom’ where we have ‘everything before us’?
In the current epoch of globalisation, with extensive and rapid movement of people, ideas, information, capital, services and technology across countries, the world has shrunk through the rapid increase in the speed of air and other travel, the revolution in communications, the internet and huge computerised information systems. At the same time, globalisation has brought with it growing inequalities within and between nations whilst affording opportunities for the few.