The End of the History

4 Pages 1120 Words

Fukuyama derived his argument from the writings of Kant, Hegel and a critical reading of Marx. This new phase represented the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy with the collapse of Communism. History has ended in the sense that there is no more room for large ideological battles.

The present work is the first serious attempt to provide a rounded evaluation, which is
sympathetic to Fukuyama's aims. It sets his thesis in the context of 'end of history'
theories from Kant to Marx, acknowledges its affinities with different aspects of them,
but argues that its metaphysical commitments are much more acceptable to the modern
world than those of its predecessors.

Like Fukuyama, its authors believe that philosophy of history can and should make a real
difference to our understanding of our present social and political problems.

Why the fuss? Writing at a moment when Communisim was everywhere in retreat, it was
hardly surprising that Fukuyama should have proclaimed the end of the Cold War and
“unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.” Such proclamations were already
legion. What commanded attention was something far more radical. Claiming to distinguish
between “what is essential and what is contingent or accidental in world history,” Fukuyama
wrote that “What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular
period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of
mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy
as the final form of human government.

“The end of history as such,” “the evolution and the universalization of Western liberal
democracy as the final form of human government”: these were the sorts of statements—along
with Fukuyama’s professed conviction that “the ideal will govern the material world in the long
run”—that rang the alarm.

Some of the neg...