The international cooperation, free trade and prosperity that the world has known since the end of WWII should not be taken for granted. Nations created a similar global order at the end of the nineteenth century, but two world wars and the Great Depression destroyed it and left the world in competitive shambles. By looking at the destructive effects of these events, we can understand why reformers were intent on creating new international ties after World War II, and what is at stake in defending today's global order. 

 

A resident of Cleveland Park since 2021, Carl Strikwerda is a former historical consultant to the National World War One Museum and the author of The Origins of Contemporary Global Order: From the Nineteenth Century to the Cold War, published by Palgrave Macmillan in London in 2025. 

 

Carl received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan and taught at the University of California, Riverside, the University of Kansas, the College of William and Mary, where he also served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania where he also served as president.