Political Order in Changing Societies, by Samuel P. Huntington

Political Order in Changing Societies (1968)

One of the foundational texts in the history of institutions and an intellectual counterpoint to Fukuyama, who was his student. It considers the role of political institutions within changing political systems and argues that political decline is at least as likely as political development. That sentence is the premise of my entire diagnosis. Dense and occasionally dated in its politics; indispensable anyway, and best read after Fukuyama.

Read it asking: Huntington taught Fukuyama that decay is always on the table, so how did the student arrive at a destination the teacher had ruled out?