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Francis Fukuyma is one of America's most astute and original
thinkers, and his books have opened new perspectives on the changing world around
us. In The End of History and the Last Man, he was the first to glimpse
the emerging shape of the post-Cold War world. In Trust, he analyzed the
social factors that create prosperity and explored how they can best be harnessed.
Now, in his most provocative and far-reaching book, Fukuyama turns his attention
to even more fundamental questions about the nature of modern society.
The Great Disruption begins by observing that over the
past thirty years, the United States and other developed countries have undergone
a profound transformation from industrial to information societies; knowledge
has replaced mass production as the basis of wealth, power, and social interaction.
At the same time, Western societies have endured increasing levels of crime, massive
changes in fertility and family structure, decreasing levels of trust, and the
triumph of individualism over community. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought
about momentous changes in society's moral values, a similar Great Disruption
in our own time has caused profound changes in our social structure. Drawing
on the latest sociological data and new theoretical models from fields as diverse
as economics and biology. Fukuyama reveals that even though the old order has
broken apart, a new social order is already taking shape. Part of human nature,
he shows, is the fact that we are all biologically hard wired to forge bonds with
one another, creating social cohesion in new and adaptive forms, not only in our
neighborhoods but also in our business organizations and family structures. Indeed,
he suggests, the Great Disruption of the 1960s and 1970s may be giving way to
a Great Reconstruction, as Western society weaves a new fabric of social and moral
values appropriate to the changed realities of the postindustrial world.
The cycle of disruption and reconstruction is a familiar one
in human history, and in pointing us toward the future, Francis Fukuyma challenges
our assumptions about society and culture and opens up a new world of possibility.
Breathtaking in its scope, The Great Disruption is an indispensable guide
for how to think about the millennium about to dawn. Francis
Fukuyama is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason
University. He has served as a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation
and as deputy director of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff, and
is the author of The End of History and the Last Man and Trust: The
Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. He lives with his wife and three
children in McLean, Virginia. |
