The Decade in Politics, One Year at a Time

The '90s are, literally, history. Some day we'll look back and ask ourselves questions like "What was the deal with all that plaid?" and "Why would we ever want to drudge up all those awful '80s songs?" But we'll also ask questions about Clinton and the remaking of White House ethics, or about the prominence of the militia movement.

In a sense, the "hows" and "whys" of history are just as important as the "whats" — not just "what are the key dates and facts and events of the previous decade," but "why are they are so key," and "how are they remembered, how are they understood within a broader historical context." It's not enough simply to remember history as a series of isolated events; each moment must be remembered in relation to every other moment.

Often, even though we remember the important things, we don't understand them because we've chosen to forget some inconvenient facts. Everyone remembers the Oklahoma City bombing, but how many still talk about the racist knee-jerk assumption that Arab terrorists were behind it? We remember Clinton's multitude of legal imbroglios, but how did they compare with scandals in other countries? 1994 will be remembered as the year of John Wayne Bobbit's dismembered member, but is it still funny when we recall it was also the year of the Rwandan genocide?

Following, then, is an exploration of 10 important events in the past 10 years as filtered through 10 perspectives we would all rather forget, or never knew about in the first place. This isn't news that got shut out of the mainstream press — rather, it's history that, despite all of its front-page prominence, is still seen through the shadows.

— Clay Risen (clay@flakmag.com)