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Essentially what he was referring to was the idea that the great ideological battles were over - liberal democracy and capitalism had won out.

Yet, not quite two decades on, history seems far from over. The now well known failures that plagued the centrally planned economies gave free market proponents and capitalists everywhere fuel for their ideological and political battles. However, global capitalist expansion is now proving a rather unwieldy beast, displaying large and often related contradictions.

In the 1980s and 1990s the earliest globalising interventions, pushed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, sought to open up economies and integrate them into a new world market that was centred upon creating favourable conditions for the accumulation of capital. This process often worsened inequality, poverty and political instability, with even some within the halls of power, such as Joseph Stiglitz, challenging "market fundamentalism".

Despite this, however, the logic of markets (focused upon maximising profits) defines us globally like never before. It conditions the way we address global crises - from climate change to poverty and financial turmoil. Importantly, it also conditions notions of progress. What is somewhat ironic here though, is that it has been this profit-centred logic that has been central to getting us where we are today.

Globally, food prices are skyrocketing, a financial crisis continues to unfold, poverty persists and climate change looms large.

In the case of the current food crisis, where prices for wheat rose almost 80 per cent last year and rice has increased by almost 150 per cent in the last few months, the poor have been disproportionately affected. Indeed, concerned about the setback that the crisis would constitute for the poor, the president of the World Bank recently called for a "New Deal" on food.

The increase in food prices is attributed to various factors that point to the interrelated nature of market expansion, climate change and poverty. For example, drought and other extreme weather patterns which have adversely impacted upon crops have been connected to climate change, which in turn has resulted from evolving patterns of market expansion.

Rising food prices have also been aided by the increase in farming crops for biofuels (which have become popular in "addressing" climate change). Finally, rising prices for oil and increased demand for food by many of those within China and India who are beneficiaries of market reforms and can afford more food have played roles also.

Yet the relationship between food, climate change and economic expansion is but one example of this new era of globalised crises. The unequal economic expansion in places like China, predicated upon cheap labour, stable authoritarian government and industrial capacity in an era of globalised production, has created massive tensions domestically and abroad.

Notably, the Chinese "miracle" involves the commissioning of the equivalent of one coal-fired power station every fortnight, mass rural-to-urban migration and social unrest. This last point is obviously related to the nearly 800 million who have yet to experience the "trickle down" from growth.

This dramatic growth, which has resulted in a minority class of mega-rich emerging and the Chinese state accumulating vast amounts of foreign reserves, has obvious repercussions for climate change, food prices, social stability, first world labour and international investment.

The developed world too has been busy juggling crises of globalisation. Notable here has been the reticence of developed countries to alter the way they live, exhibiting ever more wasteful and unhealthy consumption (driven by an expansion of credit, both sovereign - from the likes of China - and private). This reality has very real repercussions for climate change. However, it has also run in tandem with a crisis of accumulation.

Indeed, the concentration of wealth in the West, hungry for returns, has now unfurled in the form of the sub-prime crisis in the US and a broader crisis of the global financial system. Here, the crisis has emanated from those with money going in search of profit in an increasingly unequal economy.

The unleashing of the market and the forces that this sets in train has played an important part in this, for example, involving the shift of production to areas with industrial capacity and cheaper labour, and resulting in a growing split between the "haves" and the "have-nots".

Amidst this, the developed world continues to fumble around with climate change while attempting to address perceived and real threats to its security (in a broad sense). This has often involved pursuing tighter border controls, increased military spending and the promotion of shifts in consumption with dubious benefits (always ensuring that growth is the most central concern of public policy).

On the political front many of the contradictions that are unfolding mean that there are increasing pressures for governments in much of the developed world to resort to increased protectionism and the potential for populations to be ushered towards nationalist alternatives, neither of which bode well for using contemporary multilateral mechanisms to address these crises of globalisation.

This brings us back to history and a discussion of power. It is now apparent that huge problems are attached to contemporary notions of progress based upon ever expanding economic growth, which is de-linked from any consideration of the social utility of what is produced. While Nobel laureates and global bureaucrats have attempted to refine the system and attend to its worst repercussions, for example placing an emphasis upon the importance of regulation and economic transparency, even their prescriptions are conditioned by the reality of market power.

All of this suggests that humanity has a lot of thinking and organising to do if it is to survive well. Here, reinvigorated debates and coordinated action are needed to challenge the dominant ways of looking at globalisation and its crises and to generate hope. Critical in such a reassessment is placing societal wellbeing at the core. The good news is that such responses to crisis have historical precedent. Indeed, it is regularly from crisis that history evolves.

Toby Carroll is a Research Fellow at the Centre onAsia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore.