Part 1 An old question asked anew: our pessimism; the weakness of strong states 1; the weakness of strong states 2, or, eating pineapples on the moon; the worldwide liberal revolution. Part 2 The old age of mankind: an idea for a universal history; the mechanism of desire; no barbarians at the gates; accumulation without end; the victory of the VCR; in the land of education; the former question answered; no democracy without democrats. Part 3 The struggle for recognition: in the beginning, a battle to the death for pure prestige; the first man; a vacation in Bulgaria; the beast with red cheeks; the rise and fall of Thymos; lordship and bondage; the universal and homogeneous state; Part 4 Leaping over Rhodes: the coldest of all cold monsters; the thymotic origins of work; empires of resentment, empires of deference; the unreality of "realism"; the power of the powerless; national interests; toward a pacific union. Part 5 The last man: in the realm of freedom; men without chests; free and unequal; perfect rights and defective duties; immense wars of the spirit.
Francis Fukuyama was born in Chicago in 1952. His work includes America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy and After the Neo Cons: Where the Right went Wrong. He now lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children, where he also works as a part time photographer.
In a broad, ambitious work of political philosophy, a three-week PW bestseller in cloth, Fukuyama asserts that history is directional and that its endpoint is capitalist liberal democracy. (Feb.)
Fukuyama, then deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, first presented this thesis in the foreign policy journal National Interest (Summer 1989), where it attracted worldwide attention. He argues that there is a positive direction to current history, demonstrated by the collapse of authoritarian regimes of right and left and their replacement (in many but not all cases) by liberal governments. ``A true global culture has emerged, centering around technologically driven economic growth and the capitalist social relations necessary to produce and sustain it.'' In the absence of viable alternatives to liberalism, history, conceived of as the clash of political ideologies, is at an end. We face instead the question of how to forge a rational global order that can accommodate humanity's restless desire for recognition without a return to chaos. Fukuyama's views conveniently present the international politics of the present administration. History disappears very early on in the narrative, to be replaced by abstract philosophy. This essay made into a book is pretentious and overblown, though it offers some grounds for speculation. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/91.-- David Keymer, SUNY Inst. of Technology, Utica
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