Bronner vs. Fukuyama : 1989, the end of history, and the new internationalism

Revisiting the 1989 controversy over the “end of history” twenty years later, this chapter focuses on the vital contribution made by Stephen Eric Bronner, then a charismatic young political theorist at New Jersey’s Rutgers University and rising public intellectual of the democratic Left. Though more engaging and lucid than the more prominent responses to Fukuyama, his critical reflections on the subject never received a wide dissemination. My textual excavation of Bronner’s intervention tries to give it the close attention it deserves. My reading starts with the necessary historical exercise of situating Fukuyama’s claims within their larger historical context, particularly the equally controversial end-of-ideology controversy that erupted in the late 1950s. This opening section sets the stage for my interpretative analysis of Bronner’s engagement with Fukuyama’s arguments. The chapter ends with a brief but appreciative reflection on what I consider to be the most enduring virtue of Bronner’s intervention: its constructive outline of a progressive “New Internationalism.”