History and the Idea of Progress

Published by Cornell University Press 1995

History and the Idea of Progress

Edited by: Arthur M. Melzer , M. Richard Zinman and Jerry Weinberger

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501744679

Overview
Contents

About this book

The publication of Francis Fukuyama's article, "The End of History?" prompted a wave of public debates about democracy, progress, and the idea of history. In this book, twelve distinguished cultural commentators offer a brilliant array of responses to those debates.

Fukuyama's controversial essay had considered whether Western-style democracy might be the endpoint of an inevitable historical development. For the present volume, the chapters—none of which has appeared elsewhere—include both a keynote chapter by Fukuyama and a series of spirited alternatives to his position. Additional essays examine the historical and philosophical origins of the idea of history that lies behind today's perspectives on progress and politics.

Author / Editor information

Arthur M. Melzer and Jerry Weinberger are professors of political science at Michigan State University. M. Richard Zinman is University Distinguished Professor at James Madison College, Michigan State University and coeditor of Politics and the Turn of the Century and The Public Intellectual. Melzer, Weinberg, and Zinman also edited Technology in the Western Political Tradition, also from Cornell.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger and M. Richard Zinman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. THE REVIVAL OF THE IDEA OF HISTORY AS A RATIONAL PROCESS
1. On the Possibility of Writing A Universal History Francis Fukuyama Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. Hegel on History, Self-Determination, and the Absolute Terry Pinkard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
Part II. RETROSPECTIVE: ON THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF HISTORY
3. Machiavelli and the Idea of Progress Harvey C. Mansfield Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
4. Kant's Idea of History Susan Shell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
5. The End of History in the Open-ended Age? The Life Expectancy of Self-evident Truth Joseph Cropsey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
6. Nietzsche and Spengler on Progress and Decline Werner J. Dannhauser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Part III. CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS: WHERE IS HISTORY GOING?
7. Political Conflict after the Cold War Samuel P. Huntington Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
8. Enlightenment under Threat Conor Cruise O’Brien Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
9. "What Then?": The Irrepressible Radicalism of Democracy Alan Gilbert Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
10. Feminism and the Crisis of Contemporary Culture Jean Bethke Elshtain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
11. The End of Leninism and History as Comic Frame Richard Rorty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
12. The Age of Limits Christopher Lasch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Keywords: History

eBook

Published: May 15, 2019
ISBN: 9781501744679