The End of History 

by

Francis Fukuyama

I tried to read The End of History back in the 1990s when it first came out and failed. I couldn’t follow the arguments at all and gave up. This time I listened to the audio version and I got it. Fukuyama argues that Liberal Democracy is the best available form of government and now that it is being attained the progress of political history will stop.I didn’t agree with many of his arguments but I understood them. I think the audio format helped me. He pulled the book together from a series of lectures he gave after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the audio may have made it easier for me to understand what were basically transcribed lecture notes.

It is also important to understand that the title is a gentle mocking of the Marxists who definitely were the losing philosophy to the Liberal Democrats as the 20th century ended.

Has Liberal Democracy really won? Time will tell. In the meantime read (or listen to) The End of History by Francis Fukuyama.