Volume 39, Number 6 · March 26, 1992
Professor Hegel Goes to Washington
By Alan Ryan
The End of History and the Last Man
by Francis Fukuyama
Free Press, 418 pp., $24.95
Francis Fukuyama's discovery of the end of history first came to the public's attention in the summer of 1989. The essay he wrote for The National Interest on 'The End of History?' made the headlines in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere; it was for a short time a truly global sensation. The news that history had ended aroused much disbelief. Even those who were glad that Fukuyama had declared that democracy was in no further danger from its rivals were not persuaded that this was because history had stopped. Indeed, the suggestion struck many readers as more or less mad; this seemed to be a time when history was happening everywhere and happening particularly fast. The announcement of the end of history coincided with the bloody repression of the Chinese democratization movement in Tiananmen Square, and only briefly preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of Ceausescu.
Review, 6332 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |