The End of History and the Last Man
Author: Francis Fukuyama
Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
Publishers Weekly
In a broad, ambitious work of political philosophy, a three-week PW bestseller in cloth, Fukuyama asserts that history is directional and that its endpoint is capitalist liberal democracy. (Feb.)
Kirkus Reviews
In 1989, The National Interest published "The End of History?" by Fukuyama, then a senior official at the State Department. In that comparatively short but extremely controversial article, Fukuyama speculated that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and hence the "final form of human government." Now Fukuyama has produced a brilliant book that, its title notwithstanding, takes an almost entirely new tack. To begin with, he examines the problem of whether it makes sense to posit a coherent and directional history that would lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy. Having answered in the affirmative, he assesses the regulatory effect of modern natural science, a societal activity consensually deemed cumulative as well as directional in its impact. Turning next to a "second, parallel account of the historical process," Fukuyama considers humanity's struggle for recognition, a concept articulated and borrowed (from Plato) by Hegel. In this context, he goes on to reinterpret culture, ethical codes, labor, nationalism, religion, war, and allied phenomena from the past, projecting ways in which the desire for acknowledgement could become manifest in the future. Eventually, the author addresses history's presumptive end and the so-called "last man," an unheroic construct (drawn from Tocqueville and Nietzsche) who has traded prideful belief in individual worth for the civilized comforts of self-preservation. Assuming the prosperity promised by contemporary liberal democracy indeed come to pass, Fukuyama wonders whether or how the side of human personality that thrives on competition, danger, and risk can be fulfilled in the sterileambiance of a brave new world. At the end, the author leaves tantalizingly open the matter of whether mankind's historical journey is approaching a close or another beginning; he even alludes to the likelihood that time travelers may well strike out in directions yet undreamt. An important work that affords significant returns on the investments of time and attention required to get the most from its elegantly structured theme.
New interesting book: The Economic History of India 1857 1947 or Operations Management
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
Author: Haruki Murakami
From Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood, a work of literary journalism that is as fascinating as it is necessary, as provocative as it is profound.
In March of 1995, agents of a Japanese religious cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin, a gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from the survivors to the perpetrators to the relatives of those who died, and Underground is their story in their own voices. Concerned with the fundamental issues that led to the attack as well as these personal accounts, Underground is a document of what happened in Tokyo as well as a warning of what could happen anywhere. This is an enthralling and unique work of nonfiction that is timely and vital and as wonderfully executed as Murakami’s brilliant novels.
Publishers Weekly
On March 20, 1995, followers of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo unleashed lethal sarin gas into cars of the Tokyo subway system. Many died, many more were injured. This is acclaimed Japanese novelist Murakami's (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, etc.) nonfiction account of this episode. It is riveting. What he mostly does here, however, is listen to and record, in separate sections, the words of both victims, people who "just happened to be gassed on the way to work," and attackers. The victims are ordinary people bankers, businessmen, office workers, subway workers who reflect upon what happened to them, how they reacted at the time and how they have lived since. Some continue to suffer great physical disabilities, nearly all still suffer great psychic trauma. There is a Rashomon-like quality to some of the tales, as victims recount the same episodes in slightly different variations. Cumulatively, their tales fascinate, as small details weave together to create a complex narrative. The attackers are of less interest, for what they say is often similar, and most remain, or at least do not regret having been, members of Aum. As with the work of Studs Terkel, which Murakami acknowledges is a model for this present work, the author's voice, outside of a few prefatory comments, is seldom heard. He offers no grand explanation, no existential answer to what happened, and the book is better for it. This is, then, a compelling tale of how capriciously and easily tragedy can destroy the ordinary, and how we try to make sense of it all. (May 1) Forecast: Publication coincides with the release of a new novel by Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart, Forecasts, Mar. 19), and several national magazines, including Newsweek and GQ, will be featuring this fine writer. This attention should help Murakami's growing literary reputation. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
The deadly Tokyo subway poison gas attack, perpetrated by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult on March 20, 1995, was the fulfillment of every urban straphanger's nightmare. Through interviews with several dozen survivors and former members of Aum, novelist Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) presents an utterly compelling work of reportage that lays bare the soul of contemporary Japan in all its contradictions. The sarin attack exposed Tokyo authorities' total lack of preparation to cope with such fiendish urban terrorism. More interesting, however, is the variety of reactions among the survivors, a cross-section of Japanese citizens. Their individual voices remind us of the great diversity within what is too often viewed from afar as a homogeneous society. What binds most of them is their curious lack of anger at Aum. Chilling, too, is the realization that so many Aum members were intelligent, well-educated persons who tried to fill voids in their lives by following Shoko Asahara, a mad guru who promised salvation through total subordination to his will. For all public and academic libraries. Steven I. Levine, Univ. of Montana, Missoula Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Table of Contents:
| Pt. 1 | Underground | |
| Map of the Tokyo Subway | ||
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Chiyoda Line | 9 | |
| Kiyoka Izumi: Nobody was dealing with things calmly | 12 | |
| Masaru Yuasa: I've been here since I first joined | 18 | |
| Minoru Miyata: At that point Takahashi was still alive | 24 | |
| Toshiaki Toyoda: I'm not a sarin victim, I'm a survivor | 28 | |
| Tomoko Takatsuki: It's not even whether or not to take the subway, just to go out walking scares me now | 36 | |
| Mitsuteru Izutsu: The day after the gas attack, I asked my wife for a divorce | 41 | |
| Aya Kazaguchi: Luckily I was dozing off | 45 | |
| Hideki Sono: Everyone loves a scandal | 48 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Marunouchi Line (Destination: Ogikubo) | 52 | |
| Mitsuo Arima: I felt like I was watching a programme on TV | 55 | |
| Kenji Ohashi: Looking back, it all started because the bus was two minutes early | 58 | |
| Soichi Inagawa: That day and that day only I took the first door | 65 | |
| Sumio Nishimura: If I hadn't been there, somebody else would have picked up the packets | 68 | |
| Koichi Sakata: I was in pain, yet I still bought my milk as usual | 73 | |
| Tatsuo Akashi: The night before the gas attack, the family was saying over dinner, "My, how lucky we are" | 76 | |
| Shizuko Akashi: Ii-yu-nii-an (Disneyland) | 84 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Marunouchi Line (Destination: Ikebukuro) | 91 | |
| Shintaro Komada: "What can that be?" I thought | 93 | |
| Ikuko Nakayama: I knew it was sarin | 97 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya Line (Departing: Naka-Meguro) | 102 | |
| Hiroshige Sugazaki: "What if you never see your grandchild's face?" | 105 | |
| Kozo Ishino: I had some knowledge of sarin | 110 | |
| Michael Kennedy: I kept shouting "Please, please, please!" in Japanese | 115 | |
| Yoko Iizuka: That kind of fright is something you never forget | 120 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya Line (Departing: Kita-Senju; Destination: Naka-Meguro) | 125 | |
| Noburu Terajima: I'd borrowed the down payment, and my wife was expecting - it looked pretty bad | 128 | |
| Masanori Okuyama: In a situation like that the emergency services aren't much help at all | 132 | |
| Michiaki Tamada: Ride the trains every day and you know what's regular air | 135 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Hibiya Line | ||
| Takanori Ichiba: Some loony's probably sprinkled pesticides or something | 139 | |
| Naoyuki Ogata: We'll never make it. If we wait for the ambulance we're done for | 143 | |
| Michiru Kono: It'd be pathetic to die like this | 148 | |
| Kei'ichi Ishikura: The day of the gas attack was my sixty-fifth birthday | 154 | |
| Tokyo Metropolitan Subway: Kodemmacho Station | ||
| Ken'ichi Yamazaki: I saw his face and thought: "I've seen this character somewhere" | 159 | |
| Yoshiko Wada, widow of Eiji Wada: He was such a kind person. He seemed to get even kinder before he died | 165 | |
| Kichiro Wada and Sanae Wada, parents of Eiji Wada: He was an undemanding child | 175 | |
| Koichiro Makita: Sarin! Sarin! | 181 | |
| Dr. Toru Saito: The very first thing that came to mind was poison gas - cyanide or sarin | 186 | |
| Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa: There is no prompt and efficient system in Japan for dealing with a major catastrophe | 191 | |
| Blind Nightmare: Where Are We Japanese Going? | 195 | |
| Pt. 2 | The Place that was Promised | |
| Hiroyuki Kano: I'm still in Aum | 217 | |
| Akio Namimura: Nostradamus had a great influence on my generation | 229 | |
| Mitsuharu Inaba: Each individual has his own image of the Master | 239 | |
| Hajime Masutani: This was like an experiment using human beings | 251 | |
| Miyuki Kanda: In my previous life I was a man | 261 | |
| Shinichi Hosoi: "If I stay here," I thought, "I'm going to die" | 272 | |
| Harumi Iwakura: Asahara tried to force me to have sex with him | 285 | |
| Hidetoshi Takahashi: No matter how grotesque a figure Asahara appears, I can't just dismiss him | 295 | |
| Afterword | 305 |
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