The End of History and The Last Man

The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay "The End of History?", published in the international affairs journal The National Interest. In the book, Fukuyama argues that the advent of Western liberal democracy may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government.

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war 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."

Fukuyama's position contradicts that of Karl Marx, who imagined that antagonistic history would end with communism displacing capitalism. Fukuyama himself identifies on some level with Marx, but identifies most strongly with the German philosopher Hegel, by way of Alexandre Kojève. Kojeve argued that the progress of history must lead toward the establishment of a "universal and homogenous" state, most likely incorporating elements of liberal or social democracy; but Kojeve's emphasis on the necessarily "post-political" character of such a state (and its citizens) makes such comparisons inadequate, and is irreducible to any mere "triumph" of capitalism.