Rating: 
Summary: Verbose, repetitive, but sprinkled with insights
Review: The main problem with Fukiyama's End of History is simply that it is badly written; Fukiyama's prose is verbose and redundant - the reader ends up reading the same points three or four times. That said, much of the criticism that the book has received is, in my opinion, misplaced. Fukiyama is not claiming that the capitalist system is some sort nirvana, but simply that history is a directional force that has delivered us to a point in which free market economies have reached a state of efficiency and harmony with human nature and therefore in large part won't be replaced by competing systems. This is not a value judgement, as has been accused by many critics; it's simply a matter of natural selection. Is Fukiyama saying that a free market economy is *better* than competing systems? Well what he's saying that it is better at *doing certain things*, and this is an important distinction. Fukiyama claims not a moral superiority ("best of all possible worlds") but a functional superiority in which the occasional backtrack (a military coup here, a revolution there) will be shown to be mere blips. History, according to Fukiyama, is asymptotic, and we're approaching the end state. Much of Fukiyama's argument is philosophical and at such lacks empirical data. So be it; I see this book as more than anything a discussion piece and many of its claims are essentially can't be proved (or will be proved or disproved over the next century or so). This is a flawed work, but one which makes some interesting points. Fukiyama's discussion on Thymos and the "desire for recognition" as the dividing line between slaves and masters is interesting, but in that I'm not a scholar on Hegel and haven't read the original works I don't know if they've simply been lifted from previous writings. In the end, reading this book is a lot of work for a little insight, therefore it is with a degree of reluctance that I recommend it. On second thought, a better idea would be to go to your local library and dig up the original 1989 National Interest article; you'll get essentially the same main ideas without having to slog through hundreds of pages of wordy and repetitive text. In some ways this book has changed the way I look at the world, but some of the conclusions I've taken with a grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed Theory
Review: I have to admit that this is not an easy book to read. I struggled to finish this book (therefore you can imagine how dry is the material). Fukuyama's theory of history is made up of the conflicting ideology of democracy and communnism is, I must say, a little too simplistic. History is definitely more than that!
Rating: 
Summary: Politicized Theories with a Dilettante's view of History
Review: With the arrogance of Hegel some 200 years ago, Fukuyama, a coddled, Washington beltway "think-tank" elitist--long on theory unsupported by empirical data and short on practical experience of the real world--proclaims American global Capitalism of the Reagan era (this came out just on the cusp of our current dizzying hi-tech computer decade) to be the "best of all possible worlds" (if I may paraphrase "Candide"). Would that Fukuyam had just an iota of Hegel's intellect to balance the presumptous arrogance. One reviewer said this should be mandatory reading "even for the lay person"! Folks, this Is written FOR the layperson BY a layperson! Fukuyama, like all political hacks, selectively chooses the data that supports his theories and ignores everything else that would embarrass them. He is considered a laughable hack by all serious Historians and current affairs global analysts. His writing is the apotheosis of comfortable, elite, armchair detachment that the ignorant, conformist "gray flannel dwarves" love to eat up to placate their gnawing insecurities that the future of the planet cannot, perhaps, be so neatly and cleanly understood. Fukuyama has never been hungry, underpaid, unappreciated, or exploited, has never worked on a production line for subsitance wages, has never likely gotten dirt or grease under the finger nails of his finely manicured soft white hands out of necessity (but perhaps to amuse himself Sunday afternoon in the rose garden). Neitzsche was dead on target about guys like this. The "best of all possible worlds" that Fukiyama envisions--and even claims is here already--is absolute death for anyone with a soul. But that world is not here, and never will be, despite the pathetic efforts of all who espouse his credo. God has not "retired" and turned over his authority to the Hegels and Fukuyamas of the world, much as they would like to believe it. The "universal cyclone" of history is known to God alone, and sweeps away all things known in the present, but it is most shocking to arrogant poseurs like Fukuyama who claim authority that is not theirs.
Rating: 
Summary: End of history and the last whig
Review: This work is an enigma of philosophical history and ideology at the same time, the piece de resistance of 'bourgeois ideology', one whose arrival with perfect timing and clever idea at the collapse of Bolshevism was a kind of Hegelian coup d'etat of philosophy. Like a good move spotted in chess, one jumps to the play, only to suffer later complications, thus Fukuyama's thesis ends a victim of its own cogency, which demands critical challenge ad infinitum. Picking up the fumbled football of the eschatological advertisement, it inherits the millenarian expectations of its former rival and demands in the end we examine more closely the real Hegel behind the one espoused by Alexander Kojeve, whose interpretation of the Hegelian idea was always suspect as something of a concoction, cf. Jon Stewart's _The Hegel Myths and Legends_ (now back in print), for the creation of this Hegelian myth. The difficulty with this compelling beguilement is the failure to specify the details of the infinite variety of liberal systems compatible with abstract definitions, not all of which will converge to any end, save that of frozen social evolution, the infinite loop of the year 1848. Thus the end is at risk of being a permanent beginning, and as in the beginning, so at the end, the test, behind the jargon, is equality. cf. Alexander Kojeve, Shadia Drury. Hegel and Marx, David MacGregor. After History? Fukuyama and his critics, Timothy Burns (ed.).
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely powerful book
Review: This is really a spectacular work. Regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions, all must agree that it is important for its timeliness and its bold attempt to resurrect the concept of directional/progressive history. Should be required reading for students of International Relations and Democracy
Rating:
Summary: rethink the development of historical stream
Review: i have read the THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN in chinese version,which enlighten us to rethink the Hegel,marxism,and the democracy.
Rating:
Summary: To Be Frank - A Load Of Old Rubbish
Review: Fukuyama's far fetched and frankly irrelevant theories bore me, I'm afraid to say. This was the book that introduced me to that way of thinking - it's basically written by a wealthy American academic (who has spent most of his life employed by the US government), claiming that the American capitalist system has conquered all political alternatives, surpassing even that of democracy and especially that of communism. Capitalism is, for Fukuyama, the end of the evolution of man and the start of an eternal status quo. This idea is laughable in concept and is further ridiculed by his over-selective choice of material which is already outdated. Clearly it is his ideal world - but I not sure that everyone shares it and even less sure that we have reached it.
Rating:
Summary: Irrelevant work with amazing staying power
Review: It's really hard to top that priceless review below, but I'll give it a shot. It's really amazing that after about seven years of hindsight, people are still writing rave reviews of this book for its amazing philosophical insights. Fukuyama himself had to back-pedal several times to qualify the bubbling optimism he expressed in the early nineties about the final victory of liberal democracy and the "end of History" (he essentially refutes his own thesis in the conclusion to this book). It's also quite interesting that none of the reviewers who loved this book so much noted the inherent contradiction in Fukuyama's use of Marxist philosophical methods to arrive at a "non-Marxist conclusion," or his continuous extolling of Hegel as some sort of predecessor to liberal democracy. Hegel was hardly democratic in outlook (he greatly admired the powerful and autocratic Prussian state) and he can rightfully be considered an early proponent of an exclusive northern German nationalism. Fukuyama's book is very flawed, and should have been relegated to the dustbin of history (no capital "H") long ago.
Rating:
Summary: In search of a grand narrative
Review: Doubtless, this book received so much media attention because it was a gullible attempt at turning liberal democracy into a philosophy. This was unskillfully done through cutting and pasting from other existing modes of thought. I particullarly found his generalisations about Islam, Japan or even China quite offensive. If one wishes to stigmatise a whole civilisation, I suggest Mr. Fukuyama ignore the current modes of politicised Islam and have a look at the Middle ages when Muslim and Arab scholary work was the first thing scientists and thinkers turned to salvage themselves from the darkness of the middle ages. It is sufficient to point out that Greek philosophy was revived in Europe through back translation of Muslim scholars not to mention other fields such as Medicine, Chemistry, Math, the list goes on... I beleive that in order to understand where the world is going, one should not engage in re-constructing a meta-narrative with half-truths like that which pertains to liberal democracy which may have offered more choice in terms of how many brands of tea are available but at the expence of creating violence, anxieties, tattered family structures and social fiber. I suggest Mr. Fukuyama read history a bit more closely next time and he will find that the only system which managed to truly free humnity and push civlisation to the forefront is the version of Islam that existed before the 16th century.
Rating:
Summary: Fragmentary Pieces Number One, a poem
Review: London Bridge, the sky is falling, and Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. H. D. came from Bethlehem. And so did Jesus. And they took Him down from the cross. It's in Arizona now, over a river with almost no water. London, so bleak! I came, I saw, and I came again, and then, I conquered. The spoils of war! Venti, Vidi, Vici! And Vico and His-tory, and the end of it. The conquest of Mexico and Peru, they didn't even re-cognize you! No wonder, His-story is coming to an end! copyright, T G Rex, Tucson, Arizona, 16 December, 1999
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