The CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER

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The thesis of this provocative and potentially important book is the increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts between countries and cultures that base their traditions on religious faith and dogma. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures--Western, Eastern Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African--in current struggles across the globe. Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard University and foreign policy aide to President Clinton, argues that policymakers should be mindful of this development when they interfere in other nations' affairs.


From Publishers Weekly
Huntington here extends the provocative thesis he laid out in a recent (and influential) Foreign Affairs essay: we should view the world not as bipolar, or as a collection of states, but as a set of seven or eight cultural "civilizations"?one in the West, several outside it?fated to link and conflict in terms of that civilizational identity. Thus, in sweeping but dry style, he makes several vital points: modernization does not mean Westernization; economic progress has come with a revival of religion; post-Cold War politics emphasize ethnic nationalism over ideology; the lack of leading "core states" hampers the growth of Latin America and the world of Islam. Most controversial will be Huntington's tough-minded view of Islam. Not only does he point out that Muslim countries are involved in far more intergroup violence than others, he argues that the West should worry not about Islamic fundamentalism but about Islam itself, "a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power." While Huntington notes that the war in Bosnia hardened into an ethno-religious clash, he downplays the possibility that such splintering could have been avoided. Also, his fear of multiculturalism as a source of American weakness seems unconvincing and alarmist. Huntington directs the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This book attracted attention because of its thesis that the "clashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace." However, Huntington's work is important here for his second chapter on the nature and study of civilizations (with its excellent bibliographic sources), and his last chapter on the future of the West and other "core" civilizations. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Michael Ignatieff
The Huntington argument that the West should stop intervening in civilizational conflicts it doesn't understand makes a powerful claim that internationalists cannot easily ignore. The question is whether there remain certain human interests that all civilizations had better endorse for our common survival.


From Booklist
For those attentive to foreign affairs, durable political analyst Huntington is certain to excite debate, and not only for his concluding scenario for World War III, the post^-cold war version. That could happen if the U.S. mishandles an increasingly xenophobic and truculent China: remember, a Chinese officer during the latest Taiwan crisis reminded the U.S. that China can nuke Los Angeles. Chinese assertiveness, Huntington argues, arises out of its felt grievances against a relatively weakening West, a phenomenon of resentment and temptation existing wherever the West has contact with another civilization. After China, the gravest challenge to the West, Huntington maintains, is resurgent Islamic identity, and to those believing only violent radicals hate the West, the author asserts "fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise." So what to do? Atop Huntington's agenda is that the West should give up universalizing its values and rather ensure their survival within a stronger European-North American alliance to offset the emerging Sino-Islamic grouping. A set of sharp, controversial theses and a coherent message make this a critical current affairs book. Gilbert Taylor


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Elaborating his seminal and controversial article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Harvard professor Huntington presents a paradigm for post-Cold War international politics in which the principal source of conflict will be cultural divisions among competing civilizations. Prophesying an assault on Western interests, values, and power from a Confucian-Islamic connection, he artfully extrapolates from recent history in defense of his thought-provoking thesis, enjoining Western governments to reconcile themselves to new global realities and offering recommendations for prescriptive action. Though only time will vindicate, or disprove, the author, this groundbreaking book merits serious attention. Scholars in particular will want to critically assess its viability as a replacement for the realist model of world politics that has dominated Western thinking since the end of World War II. Sui generis, this distinguished contribution from an equally distinguished author is recommended wherever there is an interest in international relations.David Ettinger, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.


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