As the communist era vanished, Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history,” which became part of the title of his bestselling 1992 book, 'The End of History and the Last Man.' In it, he declared that liberal democracy had triumphed, proving itself the ultimate form of human government. With the Middle East in revolt and China’s economy rising, Francis Fukuyama is once again weighing in on the state of a radically changing world. His newest book, 'The Origins of Political Order,' seeks to answer the existential question of politics—where does government come from?
After 22 years in Washington, as a teacher, philosopher and political theorist, Fukuyama has escaped to Stanford; the self-exile has offered Fukuyama a mental liberation, freeing him from ideological trappings and allowing him to serve up his latest magnum opus which hits bookstores this week. The book seeks to understand and explain how human beings transcended tribal affiliations and organized themselves into political societies. "In the developed world, we take the existence of government so much for granted,” he writes, “that we sometimes forget how difficult it was to create."
