806 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE in both East and West, to suggest that some day the Soviets might enter the personal computer marketplace” (p. 73). Many small errors also plague the book, including the details of the life of the founder of the Soviet semiconductor industry (pp. 60-61), the spelling of Walter McDougall’s name (p. 125), the role of Lunacharsky in GLAVNAUKA (p. 7), and the size of the vote for Vladimir Zhirinovsky in his first run for the Russian parliament (p. 152); Zhirinovsky received not the majority of the votes but the plu rality. Despite these flaws, the book contains some interesting informa tion and, if quotations and facts are carefully checked, can be of use to researchers. Rezun should be credited for identifying a promising network ofproblems and for making considerable progress in resolv ing them. Unfortunately, his admirable ambitions were not accom panied by sufficient scholarly depth and accuracy. Loren Graham Dr. Graham is professor of the history of science at MIT and Harvard University. History and the Idea of Progress. Edited by Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni versity Press. 1995. Pp. viii+271; notes. $37.50 (cloth), $14.50 (paper). In 1989, Communist regimes unraveled country by country throughout Eastern Europe. Francis Fukuyama responded to the dramatic collapse of Communism with an attention-grabbing essay, “The End of History?” Now he leads off this volume, twelve essays from an extended symposium held at Michigan State University (1990-91), with a restatement of his views under the title, “The Pos sibility of a Universal History.” Fukuyama had made several bold claims in his earlier essay (which elicited strong reactions from several of the symposium’s contribu tors) . The collapse of Communism meant the end of history, in his view, because it brought the unabashed victory of economic and po litical liberalism. The ideological struggles that had fired the imagi nation of intellectuals and created conflicting political movements now have no future. Western liberal democracy stands alone with no comprehensive ideological alternative to challenge it. For intel lectuals the future will prove “a very sad time,” absent the daring, courage, imagination, and idealism that had fueled their efforts. Hegel anticipated this end of history, writes Fukuyama here. He based his views of universal history not on the progress of science and technology but on the human struggle for “recognition.” Hobbes and other political theorists viewed history as dominated by self-interest and a struggle for self-preservation. Hegel, says Fuku TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 807 yama, took a more noble and accurate position: humans are willing to risk their lives to gain recognition, and this makes them truly hu man. Liberal democratic values embody this sense of self-worth; Communism thwarted it, and failed. The first set ofessays to follow Fukuyama’s piece study key contrib utors to the philosophy of history: Hegel, Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, and Spengler. Most of the later essays, the focus of this review, deal more directly with Fukuyama’s claims. Richard Rorty vigorously agrees with Fukuyama. “We leftists,” he says, must give up our romantic visions. We should stop viewing Capi talism (capital C) as the great enemy, stop trying to reify History (“a large blurry object”), and “stick to small experimental ways of relieving misery and overcoming injustice.” Alan Gilbert sharply dis agrees with Fukuyama. Radicals, Gilbert counters, hold the same val ues as liberals. Marx expressed a fundamental democratic value when he declared that “the freedom of each is a condition for the free development of all,” Gilbert argues. Radicals, moreover, pursue democratic values more consistently and faithfully than the pro fessed liberal U.S. leaders who claim to live by them. U.S. support for oppressive military dictatorships shows that power, not democracy, determines U.S. foreign policy. Connor Cruise O’Brien sides with the liberals. He views the tri umph of Western liberal democracy as a victory of a pragmatic and flexible Anglophone expression of the Enlightenment over a dog matic and arbitrary Francophone version, a version embodied by Communism. However, O’Brien disagrees (as do other symposium authors) with Fukuyama’s contention that the defeat...
Read full abstract
Nov 1, 2024
Christopher Nikulin + 3
Just Published
Open Access