The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order

Fukuyama, Francis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684865777 ISBN 13: 9780684865775

Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1992

In the past thirty years, the United States has undergone a profound transformation in its social structure: Crime has increased, trust has declined, families have broken down, and individualism has triumphed over community. Has the Great Disruption of recent decades rent the fabric of American society irreparably? In this brilliant and sweeping work of social, economic, and moral analysis, Francis Fukuyama shows that even as the old order has broken apart, a new social order is already taking its place. The Great Disruption forges a new model for understanding the Great Reconstruction that is under way.

Review:

Virginia Postrel Los Angeles Times Innovative...engaging....Fukuyama provides a lucid course in "one of the most important intellectual developments of the late twentieth century."

Anthony Gottlieb The New York Times Book Review Francis Fukuyama is an analyst who does not, intellectually speaking, get out of bed for anything less than the all-encompassing grand sweep of history....His new book, The Great Disruption, tackles social and moral development on the same grand scale as his earlier work.

Alan Ehrenhalt The Wall Street Journal One of the ways we learn about dramatic social change in the 1990s is that Francis Fukuyama shows up to tell us it is happening....He asks large questions; and he changes the agenda of public debate. We are still talking about The End of History. I imagine we will be talking about The Great Disruption for quite a while.

Michael Kazin The Washington Post Book World Fukuyama is one of the few American intellectuals of any ideological bent capable of training a knowledge of world history and a grasp of social theory on topics of undeniable contemporary significance.

Walter Kirn New York Magazine Fukuyama is no alarmist -- he's too cool for that, too academic and wedded to the sociological long view -- but now and then he spins a nightmare scenario....Fukuyama draws on a dozen disciplines, from game theory to genetics, to make his case that stable states arise naturally from chaotic interludes the way Sunday morning follows Saturday night.

Linda Chavez The Washington Times With another presidential campaign gearing up -- and the inevitable discussion of family values that each election brings -- The Great Disruption ought to be required reading among both parties' candidates.

Howard Gleckman Business Week Agree with him or not, Fukuyama makes a challenging case.

George Scialabba The Boston Globe [Fukuyama] has made out a great deal in this book and his previous books, and will undoubtedly teach us a great deal more. Three seminal books in a mere seven years. What next?

Charles Murray Commentary The Great Disruption takes on questions that go to the heart of social policy writ large. It is written with never-failing lucidity, brings together vast and disparate literatures, and makes one think in new ways about the prospects of post-industrial society. That is quite enough for one book.

Andrew Ferguson The Weekly Standard The Great Disruption is a learned and impressive work, ranging easily across disciplines, combining fact and argument in subtle and unexpected ways.

About the Author:

Francis Fukuyama is a professor of public policy at George Mason University and the author of The End of History and the Last Man and Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. He lives in McLean, Virginia.