Our book confronts a number of myths that have pervaded the intellectual conversation of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These myths all have a common denominator: they are grounded in the claim that history has ended and that with the rise of the modern liberal democracies, we have reached the final stage of development in government. These myths evince a somewhat linear progression, akin to scientific evolution, which culminates in the survival and triumph of the modern liberal democratic model. States, the story goes, went through a succession of oppressive forms of government that did not sufficiently take into account the well-being of the people. Kings, princes, emperors, dictators, and other rulers succeeded one another until Western political thought matured enough to invent “democracy” as the embodiment of the good society. After a bloody struggle against its last, ferocious fascist and communist enemies, democracy defeated the “totalitarian” ideologies, thereby ushering in the end of history.

The “end of history” thesis is widely attributed to Francis Fukuyama, who announced it in 1989.