Building Things
A Memoir
Will be published approx. on 21. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-80522-799-1 (ISBN)
Description
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN
In 1989, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama - then an early-career academic who had cut his teeth conducting research for Ronald Reagan during his years as California governor - delivered a conference paper that would go on to become one of the most celebrated -and controversial - works of political theory of our time: The End of History.
By 2009, he had broken with his neoconservative mentors, from Allan Bloom to Paul Wolfowitz, after recanting his support for the 'disastrous' invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the laissez-faire economics that produced the financial crash of 2008.
But why did he change his mind? In this powerful political memoir, encompassing his father's involvement in the civil rights movement and his own work on CIA contracts in the 1980s, Fukuyama analyses his life alongside the seismic political shifts of the last thirty years - from Bush to Obama to Trump, from the War on Terror to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Profound and provocative, this is an intimate portrait of one of the twenty-first century's most important thinkers, an urgent study of contemporary politics - and a treatise on how the West can claw democracy back from the brink.
In 1989, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama - then an early-career academic who had cut his teeth conducting research for Ronald Reagan during his years as California governor - delivered a conference paper that would go on to become one of the most celebrated -and controversial - works of political theory of our time: The End of History.
By 2009, he had broken with his neoconservative mentors, from Allan Bloom to Paul Wolfowitz, after recanting his support for the 'disastrous' invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the laissez-faire economics that produced the financial crash of 2008.
But why did he change his mind? In this powerful political memoir, encompassing his father's involvement in the civil rights movement and his own work on CIA contracts in the 1980s, Fukuyama analyses his life alongside the seismic political shifts of the last thirty years - from Bush to Obama to Trump, from the War on Terror to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Profound and provocative, this is an intimate portrait of one of the twenty-first century's most important thinkers, an urgent study of contemporary politics - and a treatise on how the West can claw democracy back from the brink.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for Francis Fukuyama: 'One of the West's most interesting public intellectuals * Times * We need more thinkers as wise as Fukuyama * New York Times * A basic rule of intellectual life is that celebrity destroys quality... Francis Fukuyama is a glorious exception * Economist * Fukuyama writes about the degeneration of America's political system with the passion and frustration of a prophet straining to be heard * Spectator * A wealth of insights worthy of the greatest writers of democracy * Financial Times *More details
Edition
Export/Airside
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80522-799-1 (9781805227991)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Francis Fukuyama is the internationally-bestselling author of 11 books, including his globally renowned Liberalism and Its Discontents. He is a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He lives in California.