Yesterday’s Man

In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir By Francis Fukuyama FSG, 304 pages, $29The publishing industry is experiencing a surge in memoirs, and the Boomers are to blame. They want to reflect on their lives and describe the vanished world of their youth before they themselves vanish from the earth. It’s a surge in supply, not a surge in demand. Readers are skeptical the Boomers have something to say. But if the memoir of any member of that generation deserves a hearing, it is Francis Fukuyama’s. Born in 1952 to a family of first- and second-generation Japanese immigrants, Fukuyama vaulted to fame with his 1989 essay “The End of History?,” becoming one of the world’s most celebrated public intellectuals. His memoir, In the Realm of the Last Man, is marketed as a personal and intellectual autobiography that also provides an apologia for his most famous thesis. The book checks off several boxes of the memoir genre.

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