End of History and the Last Man, The (Fukuyama)

[Page 246]The decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite communist states brought a heady sense of euphoric triumph to supporters of Western and particularly American capitalist democracy. Celebrations of the collapse of communism included predictions that all the countries of the world would now develop in the same direction, toward liberal democracy. This sentiment was best captured in a 1989 essay, “The End of History?” in which Francis Fukuyama argued that the ideological evolution of humankind has reached its end and Western liberal democracy represents the final form of human government. The essay was expanded and published in 1992 as a best-selling book, The End of History and the Last Man, republished in revised form in 2006.

The main assumption underlying the ...