FYI from BATR

Francis Fukuyama has been accused of being a pseudo-thinker and a sloppy academic — accusations that are not entirely without foundation. Harsh reviews from unforgiving critics however serve to dismiss his contribution to current popular political debate. Fukuyama is a populist historian and a commentator as much as he is a scholar. True, his historical analyses are often sweeping and at times overly simplistic, yet it is precisely this broad-brush approach that lends him weight. His discursive style and penchant for punchy book titles has opened him up to an audience outside of academia, and his previous career and personal friendships have given him one within the Whitehouse.