Editing Francis Fukuyama (section)

=== ''The End of History and the Last Man'' ===
{{Main|The End of History and the Last Man}}
Fukuyama is best known as the author of ''[[The End of History and the Last Man]]'', in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies was largely at an end, with the world settling on [[liberal democracy]] after the end of the [[Cold War]] and the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]] in 1989. The book was an expansion on ideas expressed in an earlier article, "The End of History?" published in ''[[The National Interest]]''. In the article, Fukuyama predicted the coming global triumph of political and [[economic liberalism]]:

{{blockquote|What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the [[Cold War]], or the 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.|author=Francis Fukuyama|title='The End of History?'|source=The National Interest, No. 16 (Summer 1989)}}

Authors such as [[Ralf Dahrendorf]] and [[Luciano Canfora]] argued in 1990 that the essay gave Fukuyama his [[15 minutes of fame]], which a slide into obscurity would soon follow.<ref>Dahrendorf (1990) [https://books.google.com/books?id=obx2BX91FQUC&pg=PA37 ''Reflections on the revolution in Europe''] p. 37</ref><ref>[[Luciano Canfora]] [http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/la-grande-illusione-del-capitalismo-eterno/ ''La grande illusione del capitalismo eterno''] preface to Ercolani, Paolo ''La storia infinita. Marx, il liberalismo e la maledizione di Nietzsche'' quotation: {{blockquote|Quanto detto sin qui può forse bastare a non prendere sul serio saggi troppo fortunati (ma già quasi avviati al dimenticatoio) come La fine della storia del nippo-statunitense Fukuyama. Libro che, comunque, è stato ampiamente stroncato per le sciocchezze che contiene: e non già da tardi epigoni del marxismo-leninismo, ma da filosofi 'liberal' come Dahrendorf, il quale ha anche avuto il buon senso di elencare gli errori di fatto (tali da mettere in forse il conseguimento della "maturità classica"!) che il troppo fortunato libretto contiene.}}</ref> However, Fukuyama remained a relevant and cited [[public intellectual]], which led American [[communitarianism|communitarian]] [[Amitai Etzioni]] to declare him "one of the few enduring public intellectuals. They are often media stars who are eaten up and spat out after their 15 minutes. But he has lasted."<ref name="guardianprofile">{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/11/academicexperts.artsandhumanities |title=History's Pallbearer |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=May 10, 2002 |last=Wroe |first=Nicholas}}</ref> [[Bernard Crick]] in his book titled ''Democracy'' spoke of Fukuyama's principle of "the end of the world" as being a poor misreading of the historical processes involved in the development of modern democracy.<ref>Bernard Crick. ''Democracy: A Very Short Introduction''. Oxford Univ. Press. p. 112.</ref>

According to Fukuyama, one of the main critiques of ''The End of History'' was of his aggressive stance toward [[postmodernism]]. In Fukuyama's opinion, [[postmodern philosophy]] undermined the ideology behind liberal democracy, leaving the Western world in a potentially weaker position.<ref>'Francis Fukuyama, "Reflections on the End of History, Five Years Later", ''History and Theory'' 34, 2: "World Historians and Their Critics" (May 1995): 43.</ref> The fact that [[Marxism]] and [[fascism]] had proven untenable for practical use while liberal democracy still thrived was reason enough to embrace the hopeful attitude of the [[Progressive Era]], as this hope for the future was what made a society worth struggling to maintain. Postmodernism, which, by this time, had become embedded in the [[cultural consciousness]], offered no hope and nothing to sustain a necessary sense of community, instead relying only on lofty intellectual premises.<ref>'Francis Fukuyama, "Reflections on the End of History, Five Years Later", ''History and Theory'' 34, 2: World Historians and Their Critics (May 1995): 36.</ref>