In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama argued that history was over because the world was converging toward societies of democratic capitalism. The book's thesis, much disputed when it was first published as an article in 1989, seems all the more dubious in the wake of September 11. Now, in Our Posthuman Future, a volume likely to be similarly contested, he claims that biotechnology has brought about "the recommencement of history." By that he means that the biotechnological manipulation of human beings may well "move us into a 'posthuman' stage of history"--change human nature in ways that erode the foundations of the putative convergent political order.

Fukuyama brings to this exploration considerable philosophical knowledge, including a manifest respect for Nietzsche, a quotation from whom heads many of the book's chapters. He has also done a lot of homework on biotechnology, absorbing the debates about it, especially its application to human beings. Our Posthuman Future is repetitious, salted with questionable judgments and made somewhat confusing by several contradictory claims. It nonetheless sweeps the reader along by the provocativeness of its arguments and the originality of its linkages between the biotechnological and political futures.

This article was originally published with the title Meddling with Human Nature.

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