It is very interesting to read this 35 years after its first version (as an article) was published. Its main prediction - that liberalism is the logical end-point of history, which has been, and will be, reached by more and more nations - has failed, given the election 2024 of the illiberal Donald Trump as president in the USA, and the other numerous anti-liberal developments globally during the last few years.
The book has many valid and interesting points. However, given its failure, the framework underpinning it, namely Hegel's theory of historical progress as interpreted by Alexandre Kojéve, and the use of "thymos", or recognition of person-hood, looks decidedly dated. More seriously, the fundamental idea in this book of a Universal History is confused. Sometimes Universal History is discussed as if it is an objective process occurring in the world, while at other times it is seen as a way of interpreting what is going on. These are fundamentally different concepts, but Fukuyama swerves between the two as he sees fit.
There is a comment somewhere to the effect that Hegel was constrained by the views of his time, and the same can be said of this book. Having read Fukuyama's recent book "Liberalism and its discontents", I am now struck by how the author in that book has completely abandoned the argumentative framework from the first book. I wonder if he has anywhere commented on why he did that...
This book is clearly written, and an interesting testament from an epoch that is now gone.