This thoroughly researched book is a must for all who are interested in the viability of American civil society. Ridlen Ray amasses a wealth of data to empirically test Alexis de Tocqueville's famed theories on how American democracy works. Her conclusions are at once surprising and affirming. They call into question recent research findings on the diminishing well-being of Ammerican democracy and affirm the resilience of deeply held sentiments and a shift, but not a lessening of participation, in American civil society. In the process, Ridlen Ray also provides a useful model for evaluating the development of civil societies in newly established democracies such as the independent states of the former Soviet Union.

If you are a post-modern liberal-minded type, swear by the perfectibility of democratic capitalism and put your faith in the healing powers arational phenomena like culture and religion have on our over-busy life then you would like this book. Moreover, if you are a sociologist then you would appreciate the lucidity of thought and tenacity of argument that the author shows when he examines different societies. Even then if you are a leading American political scientist and a best-seller author then you must be Francis Fukuyama himself.

Francis Fukuyama's book comes as a sequel to his magnum opus 'The End of History and The Last Man' which made waves in academic circles. In this book he claimed that after the demise of communism, history had virtually come to a halt - income the free market concepts like de-regulation, liberalization and free competition and all others exeunt.

In his latest book, he adds another ingredient for the making of a successful society - social capital. The author gives the idea of trust. According to him trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms, on part of other members of that community.

He divides societies on the basis of the quantum of trust that exists therein. China, France, Korea and Italy are low-trust societies whereas Japan, Germany, America are high-trust.

He starts from social set-up and correlates it with the industrial structure a society may evolve for itself, and tells how the former determines the position of a country in the global diversion of labour. Though people may interact through contract lams but if they trust each other the cost may be effectively reduced. Similarly if an economic turmoil hits a country, a socially well knit society may cope with it more hard-nosily. Also a high-trust society is more capable to form large organizations. For instance, the Japanese keiretsu networks help each other out when in distress.

As such he does not make a case for 'cultural determinism' that certain societies are bound to succeed while others to fail and falter. In his own words "there is no necessary trade-off between community and efficiency but those who pay attention to community may indeed become the most efficient of all."

With minor exceptions the book makes an interesting reading, intelligent in content and thought-provocative, indeed a marvelous piece of value-added research.

As a result of his previous major work Francis Fukuyama achieved fame as the man who predicted 'the end of history'. With this new work he has turned his attention from the political arena to consider comparative international economic performance. He describes the broad theme of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity as follows; "that social capital has a significant impact on the vitality and scale of economic organizations".

Many commentators have tried to evaluate the importance of culture in determining national economic success. Fukuyama claims to have identified the key, performance-determining, aspect of national culture, namely, the level of trust present in a society. He maintains that culture is of critical importance to everyday economic life and that only high trust societies can create the kind of large scale business enterprises that are needed to compete in today's global economy.

The culturalist view of history attributes the success of Japan and later of other East Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan to their common Confucian traditions and their concomitant cultural characteristics. However, the traditional drawing of distinctions between Eastern and Western cultures is seen as too simplistic by Fukuyama, who points out the many differences inherent in East Asian societies. He points out not only the differences between Japan and China, but also those between China and Chinese societies abroad such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. This attention to detail and depth of analysis is one of the strengths of Fukuyama's study.

To date, the debate on this topic has centred around culturalist explanations of the economic success of the Asia-Pacific Region, but Fukuyama has gone further by attempting to apply his thesis to all developed economies; Chinese, European, North American, Japanese and former communist. Fukuyama, following Weber, sees the earlier economic success of Western Europe as culturally determined, namely as a logical result of the Protestant work ethic.

Fukuyama sees three types of trust; the first is based on the family, the second on voluntary associations outside the family, and the third is the state. Each of these has a corresponding form of economic organisation; the family business, the professionally managed corporation and the state-owned enterprise, respectively. Societies in which family ties are strong (and thus ties outside the family relatively weak) have great difficulty creating large professionally managed corporations and look to the state to perform this critical economic function. Societies with high levels of trust, and many voluntary associations can create large economic organisations without state support. Fukuyama cites China, Italy, France and South Korea as societies with a strong role for the family and weak voluntary associations, while Japan, the United States, and Germany are said to have strong and plentiful associations beyond the family. The detail with which Fukuyama supports each of these examples is truly impressive and betrays the depth of research that undoubtedly went into writing this book.

Overall Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity has to be considered a highly original work which has and will continue to raise significant interest. While many will dispute Fukuyama's main contention that significant comparative advantages arise from differences in levels of trust between countries, he offers a great deal of evidence to support an argument which is certainly correct at an intuitive level.

In this challenging book, author Francis Fukuyama examines the role of "trust" in economics. He proposes that it is the social capital of a given country (or even area within a country) that defines how its economy functions. In a high-trust society, individuals have a propensity to join voluntary organizations, and as such there are likely to be many organizations (including business organizations), of all sizes. In a low-trust society, where individuals are only able to organize within their own clan or family, organizations are likely to be either small, or very large (and state-operated). Along the way, he examines countries around the globe, but focusing primarily on China and the Confusion countries, Italy, France and Korea (as low-trust societies), and Japan, Germany and the United States (as high-trust societies).

I found this book to be quite fascinating. I must admit that I am not an expert on economics, but I found the author's arguments quite convincing. His examination of various countries explained a lot of things that I have noticed before, but he succeeds in putting it all into a whole new paradigm. I highly enjoyed this though-provoking book, and recommend it to everyone!

Fukiyama's End of History was a bit overwritten, but it contained some original and provocative ideas which he convincingly defended. The book caught my attention to the degree that I've bought Fukiyama's subsequent books: Trust, and now The Great Disruption.

Trust, Fukiyama's middle book, explored some of the links between what he calls "spontaneous sociability", circles of trust, and productivity. Not exactly the sweeping scope of End of History, but he did promote some new ideas.

The Great Disruption, in many ways, reads like "Trust Lite". This time around Fukiyama focuses on the relationships between rules, social order, and economic growth. He offers some empirical data (and nifty line charts) on statistics like crime, out of wedlock births, poverty, etc. There is some good information here, but I reached the end of the book without having acquired any new ideas or concepts.

The book's conclusion is strange. First, he puts in a plug for his End of History theme: that liberal democracy is the only viable alternative for the advancement of society. He then goes on to contradict his Hegelian theory of historical directionality by concluding that history in the "social and moral sphere" is not in fact directional in nature, but is cyclical. Finally, he concludes that the future of mankind depends on the "upward direction of the arrow of History", contradicting his previous point and again promoting his idea of the "directionality". Huh??

In the end, Fukiyama runs us around in circles (280 pages worth) without reaching any real conclusions at all. There wasn't really enough material here for a book, and as I read Disruption I felt that I was just getting bits and pieces that he'd forgotten to include in his previous two releases. This is recycled material. Not recommended.

I was intrigued by his "The End of History." I thought his "Trust" was a brilliant book and used it extensively in my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation. I only hope this latest book is a disruption in an ongoing chain of good books. In the end, "The Great Disruption" is a down right silly book. It has a lot of usefull data but Fukuyama's humanistic ideology clouds it all. All his empirical data and any real understanding of history undermine his polly-anna conclusion: that things just have to get better because people are ultimately good. Fukuyama proves that the moral consensus -- the social capital -- of the earlier era has been wiped away. That crime has sky-rocketed and that the apparent drops in recent crime rates are only the result of high incarceration rates and lower percentages of younger men. Then he turns around and wants us to believe that disfunctional behaviour has dropped because people are naturally gregarious and have a natural inclination to rebuild social capital. He doesn't bother to deal with societies -- like Ethiopia -- that have never been able to build up enough social capital. He doesn't really look any further back in history past about 1950. His generalizations about the 19th century merely show how little he has taken into account the big picture of history. He thinks (based on his ideology of human goodness) that things just have to get better. If he had studied Pitirim Sorokin for a really big picture of history, he would know better. People can come to a similar optimistic conclusion as does Fukuyama but they will need to be much better grounded in history if they are going to make generalizations about long-term historical cycles. For that, I would recommend Robert W. Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism." Fogel, a Nobel prize winner, has all the optimism of Fukuyama but with the history to back it up.

As a third world citizen this book impressed me with one of its main idea that says that no matter the storms of selfishness and individualism, sooner or later, we will come back to be social and reliable to each other again. That trend to be social to other people would be, under Fukuyama's point of view, based on physiological features of our human constitution. The references Mr. Fukuyama cites, for instance, to relate the human brain's functioning and language to our "natural" trend to be social should be reviewed by the readers interested in deeper understanding.

Mr. Fukuyama would not be the first scholar who believes that is human culture what makes more intensive our "hidden" trends to be social (or, the reverse, what makes us violent to each other and intolerant). Reading "Trust", another book of him, oneself realizes how important is the society's culture towards the role of family and work and school to build up social capital. The very essential difference between one society and the rest, in the race for competitiveness, under the ideas from "Trust" would be human created: culture, related to social capital and his formation. But now, in "The Great Disruption" appears our physiology as an important source of explanations of our collective and cultural creations (like language, attitudes towards work,and our social capital too).

What i can comment from my knowledge of peruvian history is that the social capital is a cultural product, made by people in history, with all our rational and non-rational choices, made individually and colectively. Being together in the same territory, under the same national state, and tolerate each other group, even though among different groups of peruvians we don't trust, could be explained by some physiologicals fundamentals. But this is not the same of building up social capital.Our biology,probably, makes harder having some behaviors along the time, but nothing else. So, was our human physiology an important explanation of what made less harder troublesome times in peruvian history, making us at least "just a little" tolerant to each other groupe, despite of all our differences?. May be. But the solutions of our pending challenge, of building up more social capital, will come from choices, determined by culture and social motives, not from physiology.

A very interesting book, against all their debatable ideas.

I first read this book in 1992/93. At the time I thought it was entertaining, and insightful, especially as it came on the back of the devolution of the Soviet Union.

Since its publication, this book has been subject to considerable debate by both adherents and opponents. The book proposes that the liberal democratic system operating a capitalist system is the end point of political history - ie that mankind has settled on a system of government that provides the best approach to regulating human affairs. Given the failure of communism, the failure of dictatorships (of the left and the right), I think this thesis holds true.

What opponents of the book/argument don't understand is that the author (I believe) is not suggesting that liberal democracy is not without its flaws, and occasionally will generate significant governance problems. (Take the seriously flawed Florida election ballot counting process in the Bush vs Gore US Federal Presidential election.) But what the thesis suggests is that the system is signficantly robust to work through problems, and deliver benefits on the other side. This ability to hande internal political problems without course to violence or repression is not a trait readily found in other political systems.

Fukuayma gets 'beaten' up too often for just suggesting that liberal democracy overall is a good thing, that it works, and it has succeeded other political systems because it works and people overall like it. Opponents of this thesis ought to remember that only in liberal democratic systems can opponents of the prevailing political status quo argue for its change or abolition. Try doing that when subejct to a dictatorship!

After 9-11, it became easy to make fun of "The End of History and The Last Man". The book's title suggested to some a triumphant valedictory for liberal democracy, and yet the epitome of liberal democratic values -- the West -- was now mired in another seemingly endless struggle. Especially for those who never read the work, the phrase "the end of history" became something one only said with scorn. Cynics felt obligated to point out that one more philosophy of the world had fallen into the meat grinder of history, never to be seen again.

But this book still has relevance in the post 9-11 world. Despite the vulgarization of its title, Fukuyama did not predict an end to conflict. What's more, he also did not cast the future in an unremittingly optimistic light. In some ways his themes -- particularly in the second half of the book when he focuses on the Nietzschean concept of The Last Man -- are decidedly darker than even keen reviewers of the work have noted. Liberal democracy may have triumphed, but its victory had costs for the collective psyche of its denizens.

"The End of History and The Last Man" came out in the wake of the fall and breakup of the Soviet Union. With the collapse of global communism, Fukuyama claimed the fundamental values of liberal democracy and market capitalism were now unchallenged. What's more, no other ideologies on the horizon appeared attractive or effective enough to usurp them -- ever. Yes, some countries or regions might fall under the sway of an ideology (Islamic fundamentalism) or a cultural conceit (Asian values), but too much of the globe now accepted that societies should be organized under the principles of liberal democracy and market capitalism for there ever to be a major reversal in its fortunes around the world. Thus, ideological conflict on a global scale was over. And so history -- in the Hegelian sense of the clash of competing ideologies -- was over as well.

What kind of man would this post-historical world create? Fukuyama explores this in the second half of the book - a section I feel is neglected by too many readers. Here, Fukuyama shifts his conceptual lens from the philosophy of Hegel and its focus on ideological conflict as the motor of history to the psychological insights of Friedrich Nietzsche. Having used Hegel to show how history might be ending, he now uses Nietzsche to show how empty and meaningless this ending might become. We have reached the end of the history, Fukuyama claims, but Nietzsche shows how unsatisfying that endpoint is. What happens when men are all recognized as equal and the struggle for everything except the accumulation of more material goods is over? What will they value?

"The End of History and The Last Man" and its themes will outlast its critics. 9-11 did not restart history, because Islamic fundamentalism does not represent the same serious ideological competitor that was once represented by communism. (It's highly doubtful that even a majority of Muslims desire it, and whatever the case in the Muslim countries, it's certainly true that its attractiveness is strictly limited to those of the Islamic faith.) This beautifully written book weaves different strands of philosophy, international relations, and political science into a brilliant argument that overwhelms simplistic criticisms of it. There are weak points to Fukuyama's arguments in the book - some of which he addressed himself later in his career - but few recognize them. The book still deserves a careful reading. Serious political and social commentators will be dealing with its arguments for some time.

Without question, "The End of History and the Last Man" is one of the finest affirmations of liberal democracy which I've read. Perhaps a more suitable alternative title could be "The Triumph of Democracy" since Fukuyama makes a very persuasive case for democracy's rapid rise during the last half of the 20th Century and why it may be the best form of government ever devised by man. Fukuyama uses Marxist dialectic reasoning in his arguments, drawing upon science and capitalism as twin pillars of human endeavor which he believes have made democracy's rise inevitable. While addressing the rise and fall of the Soviet empire, Fukuyama makes some important comments on the rise of militant Islam which are revelant today, suggesting that it, too, will also fail. Admittedly this is a difficult book to read, and one appreciated most by those familiar with Hegel's or Weber's writings. Still, I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that Fukuyama's tome was the most important, most influential book on political history published in the last decade of the 20th Century.

...When Fukuyama, in his latest book, published a few months ago, takes to task large segments of the scientifical and bioethical community, we should pay attention, for he is rarely misinformed and never less than cogent in his analyses. The author's main point is that human nature, and the social and political institutions built on it (such as democracy, the rule of law and the capitalist market), is at risk from changes in biotechnology, such as neuropharmacology (drugs capable of altering human behaviour in radical ways), or longevity-enhancement treatments, or genetical manipulation of the unborn. He makes a brave attempt at showing that the concept of human nature is meaningful and even necessary in this debate, and that it must not be grounded in religion necessarily. His criticism of the disregard for human nature often exhibited by scientists (even in this day and age) is chilling, and goes a long way in convincing the reader that a short leash is in order when human dignity and human rights are at stake. He shows very clearly that the main risk from genetic manipulation does not come from eugenistic states intent on eliminating the inferior- as in Hitler's Germany-, but from the law of unintended consequences (which in economics is termed social externalities). There is just no way of knowing the impact that genetic manipulation will have, especially if left in the hands of ambitious parents desirous of giving their offspring an early start in life's struggle. A probable consequence is the rise of real, biologically-grounded aristocracies, who in fairness should be accepted as a perpetual ruling class. Plato's chilling description of a perfect state, in which superior minds and bodies govern the vast majority of untermenschen, neither mixing nor pitying them, could actually come into existence. While this is probably the part of the book that will generate the biggest reaction, Fukuyama's arguments about the impacts of legal drugs to alter human behaviour are not amiss either. His main point is that current society dislikes gender-specific behaviours, and therefore attempts to use drugs to generate an androgynous conformity. He refers to how Prozac is used to nudge depressed women into more self-assertive (male-like) attitudes, whereas Ritalin is used to appease hyperactive young boys into sedate compliance. His many quotes of scientists and social commentators indicate the degree to which nature is spurned by intelligent people who believe that it is, or should be, within their power, to remake human nature and the world we live in. Stanford's Paul Erlich, always good for a laugh (he was priceless in the pompous-yet-totally-mistaken-windbag role in Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist") shows yet again that common sense is quite uncommon in academia. Given the risks on the one hand and on the other the total lack of insight that most scientists show in this regard, regulation is indispensable, and Fukuyama shows the way. He is right to argue that, contrary to what some people think, or would have us think, regulation does work to a large extent. And he is right that prohibition of certain types of research, such human cloning, should be the starting point and litmus test. This book is a must read for laymen who would like to make sense of the contradictory messages they receive on this subject, and of course by policy-setters, scientists, philosophers and social commentators. Besides being interesting and clear, the book is also very well written, so that the reader must not struggle with the writing to get at the heart of the point, and the length is also just right. In the hands of someone else, this might have become a 500 page tome, rambling its way through anecdotes and repetition. That's not the case. The book's 220 pages (plus notes and bibliography), and fighting fit.

The biotechnology revolution is upon us, says Francis Fukuyama in his new book "Our Posthuman Future," and we had better begin to deal with the challenging social, political, and economic issues which will be raised by the changes to come.

Fukuyama points out that we are already a society that is widely using and abusing drugs like Prozac and Ritalin to modify behavior and psychological states and we now seem to be all too eager to employ our expanding knowledge of human genetics to influence everything from increasing intelligence to prolonging life. But these may be the least of the problems we face in the future. The author also discusses such controversial issues as eugenics, the prospects for germline enhancement, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, and "designer babies." There are sound reasons to put limits on biotechnology and these limits can be and need to be enforced. This is, in my opinion, Fukuyama's main thesis in his book, and with this I wholeheartedly agree.

"Our Posthuman Future" deserves to be read by all those who are concerned about the direction in which biotechnology is going. No, let me go further. This book needs to be read by all thinking human beings. The reason is simple: human beings, or human nature as we have understood it up to now, may be at stake. Fukuyama is no Luddite, neither am I. But the simple fact is this: just because something in science or technology "can" be done, does not mean it "should" be done. When we learn that lesson, maybe the world will be a better place.

In his latest work, Frank Fukuyama, a political scientist with a talent for sweeping analysis and cogent policy insights, turns to the fascinating and (from a layman's perspective) mysterious world of biotechnology to uncover the possible long range implications of cracking the human genetic code.

The central argument Fukuyama presents is that the second and third order political consequences stemming from advances in neuro-pharmacology, dramatic increases in productive life, and genetic engineering are little understood but potentially profound. Unlike other revolutionary advances in science, such as nuclear energy, where the threats to society if the technology were abused or unregulated were obvious from the outset, biotechnology's greatest threat is that on the surface it seems rather benign.

From this starting point Fukuyama addresses three distinct but related topics: 1) an overview of the biotech revolution; 2) the relationship between the biotech revolution and classical political philosophy; and 3) an outline of possible policy responses. From this reader's perspective, the first section was fascinating, the second dull, and the third necessary but dry.

In short, 'Our Post Human Future' provides a great primer on the biotech revolution and convincingly lays out the potential social and political impact of those advances. Those familiar with the subject will likely find nothing new and may be disappointed. However, for those will little background in bio-technology but who enjoy pondering 'the long view' or thoughtfully engaging in policy debates, 'Our Post Human Future' will be of great interest, and will likely leave you pondering questions you'd never considered before.