Francis Fukuyama is one of America's most astute and original thinkers, and his books have opened new perspectives on the changing world around us. In The End of History and the Last Man, he was the first to glimpse the emerging shape of the post-Cold War world. In Trust, he analyzed the social factors that create prosperity and explored how they can best be harnessed. Now, in his most provocative and far-reaching book, Fukuyama turns his attention to even more fundamental questions about the nature of modern society.

The Great Disruption begins by observing that over the past thirty years, the United States and other developed countries have undergone a profound transformation from industrial to information societies; knowledge has replaced mass production as the basis of wealth, power, and social interaction. At the same time; Western societies have endured increasing levels of crime, massive changes in fertility and family structure, decreasing levels of trust, and the triumph of individualism over community. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought about momentous changes in society's moral values, a similar Great Disruption in our own time has caused profound changes in our social structure.

Drawing on the latest sociological data and new theoretical models from fields as diverse as economics and biology, Fukuyama reveals that even though the old order has broken apart, a new social order is already taking shape. Part of human nature, he shows, is the fact that we are all biologically hard wired to forge bonds with one another, creating social cohesion in new and adaptive forms, not only in our neighborhoods but also in our business organizations and family structures. Indeed, he suggests, the Great Disruption of the 1960s and 1970s may be giving way to a Great Reconstruction, as Western society weaves a new fabric of social and moral values appropriate to the changed realities of the postindustrial world.

The cycle of disruption and reconstruction is a familiar one in human history, and in pointing us toward the future, Francis Fukuyama challenges our assumptions about society and culture and opens up a new world of possibility. Breathtaking in its scope, The Great Disruption is an indispensable guide for how to think about the millennium about to dawn.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-344) and index.

Francis Fukuyama is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. He has served as a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation and as deputy director of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff, and is the author of The End of History and the Last Man and Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. He lives with his wife and three children in McLean, Virginia.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

PART ONE: THE GREAT DISRUPTION

1. Playing by the Rules
2. Crime, Family, Trust: What Happened
3. Causes: The Conventional Wisdom
4. Causes: Demographic, Economic, and Cultural
5. The Special Role of Women
6. Consequences of the Great Disruption
7. Was the Great Disruption Inevitable?

PART TWO: ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS

8. Where Do Norms Come From?
9. Human Nature and Social Order
10. The Origins of Cooperation 11. Self-Organization
12. Technology, Networks, and Social Capital
13. The Limits of Spontaneity and the Inevitability of Hierarchy
14. Beyond Cave 76

PART THREE: THE GREAT RECONSTRUCTION

15. Does Capitalism Deplete Social Capital?
16. Reconstructions Past, Present, and Future
Appendix: Additional Data and Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Index