Is The End of History and the Last Man one of the All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books? TIME thinks so. Check it out.

The End of History and the Last Man

By Ishaan Tharoor | August 30, 2011 | +

Author: Francis Fukuyama

Year Released: 1992

Harvard academic Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 article in National Interest spawned his most famous work, published three years later. As Soviet communism collapsed and movements for freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe captured the world’s imagination, Fukuyama suggested that the time was not far off when every nation-state would become a liberal democracy. Invoking the 19th century philosopher Hegel, who thought of history as a kind of evolutionary process, Fukuyama imagined a natural “teleological” end whereby the pinnacle of human development would be in societies based on democracy and capitalism. In an era of optimism, The End of History won Fukuyama near instant celebrity and influenced a whole swath of prominent commentators and advocates of globalization, like “earth is flat” proponent Thomas Friedman. But history, as Fukuyama surely accepts, has not ended. The world looks no closer to being one large European Union — and with the success of decidedly undemocratic China and the rise of reactionary, extremist right-wing movements throughout the West, some argue that it’s Fukuyama’s liberal democracy whose future lies in shadow.

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Related Topics: Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Melissa

Reblogged this on Swamp of Boredom and commented:
I’m reblogging this for my own reference and also to share with my readers (all 34 of you;)). Since the release of the 1001 Books App on Tuesday, I’ve been book list crazy. Since I like non-fiction – especially non-fiction centered on historical events and people, not so much current people – and have read a couple of excellent non-fiction books in the last year (Only Yesterday, Empire of the Summer Moon) I wondered if there was a list of recommended non-fiction books. Of course there is. I found one from the Guardain (UK) that is, obviously, geared towards British readers and that, unlike Time’s list, encompasses all non-fiction ever written. This list from Time consists of books only since Time began publishing, 1923. There are a few that don’t interest me at all and the biography choices focus too heavily on women and African Americans, IMO, but overall the list is excellent.
Enjoy!