DESCRIPTION: Fukuyama's book "Identity" is an essential reading for understanding the challenges facing societies in the Western world and globally today – a sharp yet timeless text on the need to forge a universal understanding of human dignity.

In 2014, Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decline as powerful interest groups progressively seized the state. Two years later, his predictions were confirmed when politicians who had not previously held institutional roles came to power. Politicians whose views in favor of economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order.

They seek a direct “charismatic” connection with the “people,” whom they perceive through a narrow definition of identity, simultaneously excluding large segments of the population. The demand for recognition of individual identity relates significantly to what is currently happening on the international political stage.

The universal recognition of identity, upon which liberal democracy is based, faces challenges from narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender. As a result, we are witnessing a rapidly growing anti-immigrant populism, the swift rise of radicalized Islam, as well as the rise of white nationalism.

As we confront these challenges, we must begin to understand identity in a way that does not undermine but rather supports democracy. The emergence of identity politics in modern liberal democracies is one of the main threats they face, and if we do not return to more universal notions of human dignity, we will be perpetually condemned to conflicts.

In the author's words: “This book would not have been written if Donald J. Trump had not been elected president in November 2016. Like many Americans, I was taken aback by this result and concerned about its implications for the United States and the world. It was the second major electoral surprise of that year. The first was when Britain voted to leave the European Union the previous June.

I have spent a lot of time over the last two decades examining the evolution of modern political institutions: how the state, the rule of law, and democratic accountability first emerged, how they evolved, how they affected each other, and finally, how they can decline.

In this book, I return to the themes I began exploring in 1992 and have since written about: anger, recognition, dignity, identity, migration, nationalism, religion, and culture. The demand for recognition of one's identity is a dominant concept that unifies much of what is happening in global politics today. It is not limited to the identity politics studied in academic circles or the white nationalism it has provoked, but extends to broader phenomena, such as the rapid rise of old-fashioned nationalism and politicized Islam.”