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The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order 1st Edition

by
Francis Fukuyama (Author)
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Francis Fukuyama (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars 22 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0684845302
ISBN-10: 068484530X
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (June 14, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 068484530X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0684845302
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,329,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA good primer in modern sociology without the politics
By Marty Spiller (spiller@bicnet.net) on July 8, 1999
Format: Hardcover
The Great Disruption is a wonderfully apolitical look at the rather disconcerting changes that have taken place in the social structure of western civilization during the last third of the twentieth century. Francis Fukuyama does this by examining the recent changes in social norms and values in western civilization as a whole, including the course they have taken in other countries, as well as in the United States. He lucidly examines the underlying causes for these changes, and compares them with those observed in other cultures as well as those that have taken place due to earlier social disruptions throughout the history of Western civilization. It is of special interest to those of us who grew up in the times prior to the disruption, when social norms tended to support individual happiness by stressing the more communitarian aspects of culture such as family, religion, and reciprocal employer/employee relations. For many of us, the world has become a cold, lonley place.
Fukuyama does NOT take sides in the culture war except insofar as to acknowledge changes that have come about, or are in the process of taking place. He does make judgments about the adaptability of some of the changes and their likelihood of remaining in their present form over the long haul. It is of particular interest to note that he does not attribute the various disruptions in social norms to politics per se, but rather to natural reactions of individuals to the changes in their environment wrought by the new technologies that have come to dominate western culture. These include the wide dissemination of information, increases in longevity and the shift from a society based on manual labor to one based on intellect.Read more ›
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2.0 out of 5 starsFukuyama Disproves Himself -- Ideology trumps facts
By John B. Carpenter on September 3, 2000
Format: Hardcover
I was intrigued by his "The End of History." I thought his "Trust" was a brilliant book and used it extensively in my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation. I only hope this latest book is a disruption in an ongoing chain of good books. In the end, "The Great Disruption" is a down right silly book. It has a lot of usefull data but Fukuyama's humanistic ideology clouds it all. All his empirical data and any real understanding of history undermine his polly-anna conclusion: that things just have to get better because people are ultimately good. Fukuyama proves that the moral consensus -- the social capital -- of the earlier era has been wiped away. That crime has sky-rocketed and that the apparent drops in recent crime rates are only the result of high incarceration rates and lower percentages of younger men. Then he turns around and wants us to believe that disfunctional behaviour has dropped because people are naturally gregarious and have a natural inclination to rebuild social capital. He doesn't bother to deal with societies -- like Ethiopia -- that have never been able to build up enough social capital. He doesn't really look any further back in history past about 1950. His generalizations about the 19th century merely show how little he has taken into account the big picture of history. He thinks (based on his ideology of human goodness) that things just have to get better. If he had studied Pitirim Sorokin for a really big picture of history, he would know better. People can come to a similar optimistic conclusion as does Fukuyama but they will need to be much better grounded in history if they are going to make generalizations about long-term historical cycles. For that, I would recommend Robert W. Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism." Fogel, a Nobel prize winner, has all the optimism of Fukuyama but with the history to back it up.
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5.0 out of 5 starsSeeing the big picture
By Todd Winer on February 1, 2000
Format: Hardcover
This is an important book for readers who are interested in how our cultural landscape has shifted in the last three decades and what the future holds for us. Mr. Fukuyama is the premiere writer in American today when it comes to articulating the big picture and offering unique and provocative viewpoints. "The Great Disruption" is further evidence of that fact. Many Americans fail to appreicate the incredible social changes that have taken place since 1960 and Fukuyama pinpoints the prime culprit - a radical change in gender relations. Changes in the economy and the government are big enough but when you're talking about the way that families are raised and how men and women relate to each other - social mores that have lasted for thousands of years - you're talking about a seismic social shift. This revolution, which Fukuyama traces to the birth control pill, has led to serious social issues - teen pregancy, single-parent families, crime, low trust in government, and more. This is not a completely unique thesis but Fukuyama explains it in far more depth than any other recent author. Furthermore, Fukuyama reports that this "Great Dispruption" is mellowing and he uses the encouraging statistical data of the last five years as evidence. The author sites mankind's fundamental need for order as the catalyst for this social pause. What he leaves out, however, is a vision of what our country will look like ten or twenty years from now because of this development. Will these statistic trends level off? Will they reverse themselves? And if so, completely? Or is this just the eye of a storm waiting to churn again? This, I suppose, is left to the intellect of the reader. Nevertheless, this book is a must-read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 starsTomorrow, we bow

No other academic has a better eye on commercial value of social criticism than Francis Fukuyama. Two decades ago, he coined the term "End of History" as shorthand for global... Read more

Published on January 5, 2012 by San Fernando Curt
4.0 out of 5 starsThis book will be appreciated more over time

The Great Disruption is an important book, and will be seen as a key part of the literature helping us to adapt to the emerging new socio-economic order that is taking place around... Read more

Published on May 28, 2011 by Stephen C. Jordan
5.0 out of 5 starsA brilliant examination of western social collapse

And, in a nutshell, things are worse than you thought.

Fukuyama has collected research from dozens of different sciences to expose western social problems. Read more

Published on July 22, 2009 by Jeri
2.0 out of 5 starsSave yourself the trouble-don't read it for it is too naive and little...

Reading the book was a painful experience and I grew somewhat cranky towards the end, for similar reasons, one gets cranky when s/he is sitting in a theatre, watching a movie that... Read more

Published on August 7, 2008 by Sutirtha Bagchi
3.0 out of 5 starsVery interesting, but a little lacking in coherence

The subject matter is really quite interesting and his thesis is convincing. The big problem I have with this book is in its structure. Read more

Published on November 19, 2006 by Sheldon Kessel
2.0 out of 5 starsParty ideologue on an off-day.

When the End of History appeared, one did not know exactly what to think of it, nowadays we know who Fukuyama is: the US Republican party ideologue. Read more

Published on May 1, 2005 by Ward Schelfhout
2.0 out of 5 starsIt's Hard to Know What to Think!

It is quite difficult to me to feel anything but a benign "that's interesting" type of indifference to this book. On some things, Fukuyama does rather well. Read more

Published on August 24, 2004 by Kevin Currie-Knight
4.0 out of 5 starsGood food for thought

The one thing with Francis Fukuyama is that he can't be faulted for not speaking his mind. From his essential "End of History" he has drawn further conclusions on the... Read more

Published on June 6, 2004 by Paul Peters
4.0 out of 5 starsAre we naturally social people?

As a third world citizen this book impressed me with one of its main idea that says that no matter the storms of selfishness and individualism, sooner or later, we will come back... Read more

Published on June 22, 2003 by emanriqu
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat book

Fukuyama is an intellectual giant of our time, yet readable and to the point. I recommend anyone to start off with his "End of History" before graduating to... Read more

Published on January 23, 2002 by Jaime Gonzalez

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