Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis
Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and
admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book
Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one
of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington
Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed "this is a book that will be remembered.
Bring on volume two."
Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of
political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential
question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable
political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French
Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of
contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on
governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it
out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America,
Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions
have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly
reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global
middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West.
A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a
well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is
destined to be a classic.
