Fukuyama Book Review

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The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama in his book, called “The End of History and the Last Man”, written in 1992 on the basis of his world’s famous essay “The End of History”, attempts to restate and support his argument that the humankind is moving towards the ascertaining liberal political democracy as the only convenient for the society political and economic system. According to Fukuyama, ideal liberal democracy, founded on the principles of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’, is a system that cannot be improved on. Looking at the relatively stable democracies of today, the author admits that it is hard to achieve the system, which is absolutely free from fundamental internal contradictions. However, he believes and represents liberal political democracy as the ‘end point of mankind’s ideological evolution’ and the ‘final form of human government’. The book itself is a unique, detailed description of how and why, what is called ‘Universal History’ leads us to the establishment of the liberal democratic world. Fukuyama arrives to this conclusion for two separate reasons, one of them being ‘economics’ and the other what is termed ‘ struggle for recognition’. To reduce misunderstandings, at the beginning of the book, the author defines ‘Universal History’ as a single, coherent, evolutionary process, when taking into account the experience of all peoples in all times. Fukuyama has divided his creation into the five distinctive parts, which take the reader beyond any textbooks or daily news to understand the meaning of the current political and economic situation of the world. In the first part of the book, called ‘An Old Question Asked Anew”, Fukuyama explains the phenomenon of pessimism of the 20th century, that significantly slowed down the process of establishing liberal democracy. He explains that the 20th century was the time of cruelty, starting
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