More of an essay about identity than news, Fukuyama presents a powerful argument about the nature of radical Islamism (where it comes from), and how Europe and to a lesser degree the United States need to reconceptualize national identity to keep liberalism strong.

Fukuyama is a serious philosopher long aligned with the conservative right. His is an important voice because it will be widely listened to and it is good to get his views directly in a piece like this. Partly by necessity and partly by rhetorical ploy, Fukuyama drops names as if the lay reader had a clue what those people ever said or which of what they said the writer was pointing at. For the most part, this is understandable by a good reader. It completely fails to step up to the marginalization of the latin population in the US, the historical and continuing problems of the African Americans, or the fact that at some level, the German Holocaust was a primitive response to this kind of problem with the Jews and the Gypsies ... More »

This is scholarly, erudite, concise and fascinating. It is dealing with EUROPE, by the way. Can reviewers try very hard to understand that in order to write a good, in-depth story, it is vitally necessary to find ONE topic & stick to it, instead of trying to cover everything?

Mr. Fukuyama tries to assess the effects of weak collective identities--particularly Western Europe and Canada--in the face of migration of Islamic groups and the like. While he is well-intentioned, his premise is not always clear, especially on post-modernism.