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Summary: One of the most important books of this century
Review: Contrary to the common interpretation, Fukuyama, in fact, predicts the implosion of liberal democracy because of its inherent contradiction between liberty and democracy. Liberty encourages differentiation among people, while democracy is predicated on equality. Understanding the implications of this contradiction is critical for all of us living in the end of History.
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Summary: Beautifully presented and argued. Provocative
Review: Not everyone will agree with Fukuyama's view of "The End of History and The Last Man". We have to admit that Fukuyama has not only gone into a lot of research in writing this book but out of all that he has raised some very interesting and thought provoking questions about where Man could be heading. His views must be included in any world leader's scenarios and plans for our future. I have a gut feel that Fukuyama will be recognised as one of the great philosophers of his time, not now but probably in a 100 years time.
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Summary: A wonderfully unbelievable story
Review:
Fukuyama's book is very well written, easy to read and fun. In the end, however, the fundamental premise is unbelievable, and the facts he presents do not appear to support the conclusion. His argument that liberal democracy will win out is based on history since about 1970. Extrapolating a grand historical drama from 20 or 30 years worth of data is unconvincing.
I have also read Huntington's book, "The Clash of Civilizations," against which Fukuyama is frequently compared. Huntington is nowhere near as well written, and while his fundamental premise is more plausible, the data he presents is equally suspect. The major difference between the two books is the authors' attitudes toward western civilization: Huntington claims that it is declining, while Fukuyama asserts it is marching toward inexorable victory. Leaving aside grand philosophical questions about the scope of history, I think Fukuyama is closer to the truth on this issue.
I recommend reading "The End of History." Just don't take it too seriously.
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Summary: The Penultimate Man
Review: Perhaps it's not fair to write a review of this book, since I read it after it's thesis has been shown to be false in light of the events of 9-11. But, I'll do it anyways. For me, this is a strange book. The main reason for this is Fukuyama's reliance on the work of Hegel and the dialectic of history. It's essentially Marx, except capitalism and liberalism are the final state. I just don't see why we should buy all of the Hegel stuff. The essence of Fukuyama's argument boils down to the following empirical claims. (1) Communisim failed. And (2), despite some rogue nations like Iraq and Iran, most countries have accepted liberal democracy as the final form of government. (1) is true. (2) however is not. It seems like history has proven Fukuyama wrong. But, I already said that. Aside from that, I don't think this book is all that great. The last section "the last man" doesn't make the persuasive case that Fukuyama thinks it does. He, himself, thinks it's an open question whether or not man's essential spirited (thymotic) nature will be satisfied by the artificial nature of liberal democracy (read: no chest beating wars). Well, apparently those are in vogue again. So, perhaps, Fukuyama was right about something: to appease his thymotic spirit, the liberal democratic man must wage war. Could he have Rumsfeld and Cheney pegged?
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Summary: Influenced my world view forever
Review: A great book has a kernel of an idea so profound that you will never forget it. This is such a book. Once human beings have "discovered" liberal democracy, once they have tasted freedom, that discovery can never be forgotten. You'd have to erase the collective memory of man to subjugate the world again. The march of freedom is inexorable. There will be missteps and failings along the way, but the world's course is unalterable. If that doesn't give you some hope, I don't know what will.
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Summary: Food for Thought: leftover Hegel & thymos of Platonic coffee
Review: "The End of History and the Last Man" is about the philosophy of history, not history itself. The few snippets of history anecdotally included are from modern Western history. Western political philosophy applied to the immediate post-Cold War world, as seen by a student of the usual Western political philosophers -- Plato Locke, Hobbes, Hegel, Nietzsche, and some guy named Kojeve -- is what Fukuyama purveys. It's a fairly readable book, considering the sources and the points he's trying to cover. I do not agree with the author that history is directional, just path-dependant -- though less so than he implies, the vagaries of linguistics and ephemerality of documentation being what they are. I'm not quick to agree that the essence, the soul of a person is a trinity of reason, desire, and thymos (esteem or pride). But if one is willing to at least suspend disbelief, the rest of the book flows reasonably from that premise, and there are significant insights to be gained along the way. The intrinsic sublimation of thymos by liberal democracy into commercial and electoral politics is seen as the primary factor in its successful competition with previous socioeconomic systems. The presumed 'end of history' arises when all nations have become liberal democracies, and compete solely on a nonmilitary basis. Modernization "can be understood as the gradual victory of the desiring part of the soul, guided by reason, over the soul's thymotic part." His characterization of liberal democracy as the best of all possible worlds and its citizens as the 'last men' is tiresome in usage and presumptuous in conception. In liberal democracy as a thesis or paradigm (see Thomas Kuhn), problems will be discovered over time, which will be synthesized with durable aspects of liberal democracy into a new paradigm. An antithesis is not required for a new synthesis, just unsolved problems with better paradigmatic solutions and a crisis of belief among adherents of the predominant paradigm. Fukuyama does add a limited qualification at the end, raising the relativism of liberal democracy (which makes it consider itself as of less than absolute virtue and value; this is theoretical) and its corrosive effect on social cohesion in favor of economic flexibility (decidedly practical) as the leading problems. Treatment of three keys issues would strengthen the book: the hegemonic master-slave relationship between the US and the rest of the world; the translation of the various philosophical theoretical considerations into sources of social power (see Michael Mann); and, while history is path-dependant, it is not teleologicaly directional: there is lack of directionality in the selection regime for States (see Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould or any other evolutionary biologist). It's the power, every day, all day, that matters. There is no Promised Land at The End of Universal History -- just another hill on the road for the wagon to climb (or descend). But ultimately this book is valuable, less for the answers it presents than the questions it raises.
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Summary: And the Band Played On....
Review: Professor Fukuyama's work brings clarity and breadth of vision to our historical crossroads, even in a post-11 September world. I had long been familiar with the thesis of "The End of History and the Last Man" -- that in liberal democracy and free-markets, history's progression towards finding the most enlightened structure for organizing society had ended -- and since I was largely in agreement with its premise, had for years declined to read the tome. To my surprise, Fukuyama's work was far more expansive in scope and ambitious than I had presumed: it was not the neo-conservative template that I had been lead to believe. Instead, I encountered a cogent synthesis of the Dialectic's search for Universal History that was as thought provoking as it was entertaining (you know your reading a "winner" when one trades sleep for time).
Many have argued that the books conclusion weakens after 11 September. I disagree: Mr. Fukuyama does not ever say that liberal democracy would succeed in the short-term, but offers the inevitability of its ascendancy over the long-term; thus, Islamic militancy (and its attendant rejection of Western values) need not be seen as anything but yet another collectivist (or theocratic) competitor to liberal democracy -- one ultimately doomed to failure. Moreover, that Mr. Fukuyama stresses the views of Hagel's Last Man -- man seeking self-recognition peacefully-over Hobb's-the man who resigns himself to materialistic coexistence -- suggests a role for the Islamist in the dialectical process: one that may one day lead to genuine democracy in the Middle East.
I highly recommend spending the time to formulate your own opinions.
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Summary: Pseudophilosophical rants from a retard
Review: This is arguably the worst book I have ever read, and hopefully, the end of Fukuyama's writing s and the last of him, a moronic neocon whose worldview of market capitalism. regime change and plutocratic democracy has proven to be just so much hot air after the botched Iraqi invasion.
Btw, which one of the cowardly neocons has volunteered their sons and daughters for combat in Iraq? None!
As eminent historian Paul Schroeder has commented, the second Iraqi invasion is the first time in history a superpower has done the bidding of its client state (Israel) and goes to war not for is own interest, nor that of its alliance partners, but for the security of its imperialistic protectorate under the guise of a new world order (sounds like Germany and Japan in WW2).
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Summary: Fukuyma says "Hegel was misunderstood", but in what way?
Review: As many other pointed out, so many people misunderstand this book after 9-11. For Islamic fundamentalism cannot threat our society as an alternative ideology, I do not think Fukuyama's main point was overthrown because of the terrorist attacks.
Yet my problem lies elsewhere. I admit that Fukuyama shows a great skill in his lucidness to describe the Universal History, and his thesis carries an overwhelming atmosphere of plausibility. I do agree that history "seems" to be directional at least so far. But seeming plausible doesn't guarantee that his logic is sound, nor it can conceal its intellectual sloppiness. Where is the "evidence" that human history is driven by the human consciousness? IMHO, the whole thesis rests on a nebulous foundation, Hegel's idealism, which rests on his metaphysics, i.e., Hegelian Geist, dialectics and holism.
It is mystery to me that Fukuyama uses these gaseous metaphysical concept as his axiom from which he deduce all the conclusions. Before Fukuyama, it was generally considered that Hegelian view of history was shattered by the logical positivism and analytic philosophy spearheaded by Bertrand Russell and Vienna Circle during the early 20th century. To counter this point, Fukuyama boasts in p349 "Superficial misreading of Hegel in the empiricists or positivist tradition are legion." But he never offers his reasoning why he thought it's superficial. To me, Hegelian view cannot stand his metaphysics. Russell's attack on the enterprise of Hegelian idealism was much more rock solid than Fukuyama's gaseous propositions.
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Summary: Great learning undermined by the arrogance of youth
Review: The major event the fall of the Soviet Union which prompted this work was a true historical turning point. Fukuyama took the world by storm by seeing it as sign of an inevitable triumph of liberal democracy. For a time it appeared to some that he might be right. But as he was now fifteen years later see a world torn apart by radical Islamic terrorism, a world in which tribal loyalties increasingly surface as most important, a world in which the possibilities of terror and destruction multiply exponentially with the perfection of Technology Fukuyama's thesis seems a Utopian kind of ivory - tower dream. Fukuyama is a tremendously learned, intelligent and skillful master of his argument- but the argument itself and the fundamental thesis has gone the way of so many other ' inevitability theories' We could conceivably all go down in a second of doom brought on by any of a number of different human and non- humanly generated events. Liberal democracy may well be the best kind of government Mankind has ever known but it certainly does not seem bound to conquer necessarily the masses of mankind, even as now when certain very large portions of mankind, China, for instance are moving ahead by leaps and bounds economically.
This is a tremendously thought- provoking work, and highly recommended. It would have been nice if its major thesis had come true.
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