The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

By: Francis Fukuyama

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions that included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or unable to function in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.

Francis Fukuyama, author of the best-selling The End of History and The Last Man, and one of our most important political thinkers, provides a sweeping account of how today’s basic political institutions developed.

The first of a major two-volume work, The Origins of Political Order begins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning of the rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge—history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics—Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics and its discontents.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2011 Francis Fukuyama (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Fukuyama writes a crystalline prose that balances engaging erudition with incisive analysis. As germane to the turmoil in Afghanistan as it is to today's congressional battles, this is that rare work of history with up-to-the-minute relevance." ( Publishers Weekly)

“Political theorist Francis Fukuyama’s new book is a major accomplishment, likely to find its place among the works of seminal thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke, and modern moral philosophers and economists such as John Rawls and Amartya Sen . . .It is a perspective and a voice that can supply a thinker’s tonic for our current political maladies.” (Earl Pike, The Cleveland Plain Dealer)

“Ambitious and highly readable.” ( The New Yorker)

The reader is a little weak.

Fukiyama's book is beyond me to criticize or praise. It is a classic and an important intellectual milestone. This review focuses solely upon the reading.

Davis's voice is clear and properly inflated. He is easy to listen to and not droning or irritating. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to understand the text in any deep way and so his stressing of words doesn't contribute to understanding the argument being presented, but frequently leads the listener down an incorrect mental path. Only a sentence later do you discover you have missed the point being made, and that you need to re-think what you've been listening to.

Many of Audible's readers set a higher standard. Davis is adequate, but not exemplary.

informative

lots of great points explained well. Historical examples are shown in the context of the time, whilst also compared to present day politics. Narrator is easy to understand, but a tad robotic, and can make interesting points sound dull.

The best political history I've ever read

I have only good things to say about this book and it's narration. Fukuyama sets out to write a history of Political order and the developments of the core parts of the state and achieves this goal definitively.

I thought the pace was excellent, as was the narrative progression. It moved freely yet logically between the micro and the macro perspectives. It even manages aptly walk the line between too much and too little background information for the various topics, institutions and regions, which could not have been easy given the subject's breadth.

For me, this was one of the books that subtly adjust my understanding of not just the subject matter on the page, but also of a range of other areas and disciplines as well.

I HIghly recommend this book to anyone interested in Politics, History, or virtually any other area of Non-Fiction.

Give it two goes.

It seems repetitive and disorderly, but once you've gotten through it the first time the second pass knits the complicated bits together.

Good Book

Good naration. Very enlightening content . Put together well so the information was a pleasure to absorb rather than a burden to understand. Good job all around!

Pretty interesting overall

A lot of interesting ideas, but I was not a huge fan of the structure and flow of the book.

Fantastic and Essential Information For All...

...who desire to opine about politics.

It seems that everyone is a pundit these days thanks to social media. Not only that, but everyone is an expert and anyone who disagrees with said person, has egregiously violated the sanctity of humanity. Too often we refuse to take a seat and listen, adhering to Twain's aphorism, 'It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt' which is the main cause of our deleterious civil discourse. After this book, I firmly believe if you haven't read it than you shouldn't open your mouth, and if you have, you know enough to realize you don't know anything.

This history of political order covers some unique history - that I wasn't even aware existed - and correlates the existence of social and religious institutions with the advent of government. It gives a "why" to the origins rather than just "it happened".

I will definitely be listening to this one multiple times and will probably get the kindle edition to supplement my studies. Additionally there is a Volume II so be prepared to get that as well.

I usually listen at 3x speed and had no issues with this narration.

Mostly awesome, distracting narration.

The book itself is great fun to have listened to, even if it was busy enough I'll probably revisit it before too long.

The major problem I had was with the narration, specifically with the word 'political'. As would be expected, that's one of the more frequent words in the book and very nearly every single time the narrator paused, then rushed through it and maybe the next word. This is obvious in the sample. He also has a less pronounced habit of saying some other, frequent, multisyllabic words as though they had to fit in the same amount of time as shorter ones, but that didn't distract so much as the 'political' issue.

I made the mistake of noticing this early and it stayed distracting through the entire 22 hours.

Fundamentals for political understanding <br />

Fundamentals for political understanding. Very thorough mapped history of the courses of politics. Very long.

Superb!! Understandable!! Important read!!

This superbly understandable and temporally important book is accessible to all. In the United States the political environment for democracy is on the downturn and Francis Fukuyama has helped me to understand what is going on. This should be required reading for all high school seniors! Everybody else needs to read it too in order to have a true understanding of what it means to be part of society across the board.