History and the Idea of Progress

The publication of Francis Fukuyama's article, "The End of History?" prompted a wave of public debates about democracy, progress, and the idea of history. In this book, twelve distinguished cultural commentators offer a brilliant array of responses to those debates.

Fukuyama's controversial essay had considered whether Western-style democracy might be the endpoint of an inevitable historical development. For the present volume, the chapters—none of which has appeared elsewhere—include both a keynote chapter by Fukuyama and a series of spirited alternatives to his position. Additional essays examine the historical and philosophical origins of the idea of history that lies behind today's perspectives on progress and politics.

Arthur M. Melzer and Jerry Weinberger are professors of political science at Michigan State University. M. Richard Zinman is University Distinguished Professor at James Madison College, Michigan State University and coeditor of Politics and the Turn of the Century and The Public Intellectual. Melzer, Weinberg, and Zinman also edited Technology in the Western Political Tradition, also from Cornell.