In his new memoir, Francis Fukuyama attempts to redeem his thesis about the end of history. But Peter Thiel’s ongoing quest to escape government oversight and wrest control of the future from democratic majorities makes a mockery of his argument all over again.
NEW YORK—In the Realm of the Last Man, the title of Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s new memoir, is an unmistakable reference to his 1992 bestseller The End of History and the Last Man. The reason he chose it, Fukuyama explained, was that people had ignored his famous book’s warning that “democracy could break down in the future because of some of the intrinsic stresses within a liberal order”—stresses born of the discontent of those whose desire for recognition exceeds what liberal democracy can satisfy.
NEW YORK—In the Realm of the Last Man, the title of Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s new memoir, is an unmistakable reference to his 1992 bestseller The End of History and the Last Man. The reason he chose it, Fukuyama explained, was that people had ignored his famous book’s warning that “democracy could break down in the future because of some of the intrinsic stresses within a liberal order”—stresses born of the discontent of those whose desire for recognition exceeds what liberal democracy can satisfy.