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Summary: A Poor View of the Future of World Politics
Review: Samuel Huntington's idea of a future (and perhaps even present) clash of peoples across cultural divides seems to make sense on first glance. Huntington divides the world into several different groupings, and notes that along the "fault lines" of the various civilizations, wars have already occurred, such as in Bosnia. The main problem with his thesis is that although there are surely different world civilizations, they are not as monolithic and united as Huntington believes. There has always been fighting among groups of people within each civilization: Europeans traditionally waged many wars with each other, culminating with the two World Wars. Even Muslims fight each other more than outsiders: recently Iraq fought Iran and then Kuwait. In East Asia China has fought Vietnam, while the Koreas have fought each other. It is more constructive to look at world politics in terms of nations, each with their own interests, than as civilizations, each with not just their own culture, but their own interests as well. The nation-state remains the primary actor on the world stage, not civilizations.
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Summary: Huntington's World View will be referenced for Decades
Review: Huntington's geopolitical theories are causing a furor of discussion, and for good reason. His ideas are a reasonable basis from which to begin understanding the past, present and future encounters between civilizations.
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Summary: Ther are good lies, bad lies, and statistics.
Review: We all have to admit it : Mr. Huntington offers a well supported theory for the World Order on the eve of the 21st century. As a matter of fact, his theory, I believe, is the only serious one in this field. He professionally uses statistics to support all arguments, the most basic one being the prediction of a cultural rivalry between the Islamic demographic explosion, the Asian economic miracle, and the West's military capabilities. This may seem very persuasive, yet it is flawed by oversimplification, and it relies too much on statistics. The fact is : there are good lies, there are bad lies, and there are statistics. Overall, I think it's a very respectable effort, but very dangerous to use as a manual for the coming century. It might cause a setback of many centuries for humanity and mankind. I firmly believe that a more respectable effort would be one that proves that different cultures can communicate, cooperate, and coexist. I also believe that politicians, academics, and diplomats should all get together to make this world a safer and better place to live in, even if their efforts run in the opposite direction indicated by statistics.
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Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: Huntingdon's thesis is interesting but offers very little outside of Eastern Europe (where I think his analysis is a little stronger). His take on Islam is wrongheaded and shallow, and virtually nothing useful in predicted about China. It's interesting how, just around the time that we needed to find some new enemies and justifications for conflict with them, we have Huntingdon and his "Clash of Civilizations". I can't help but think that this is too convenient. While I don't agree with the End of History crowd or any other such triumphalist movements, I think Huntingdon is, fundamentally, looking for trouble. I worry that the "civilizational fault lines" idea could become a reality if enough influential people start believing it. Western foreign policy wonks have a astounding ability to distort reality; remember the way that African civil wars suddenly acquired "more communist" and "more democratic" sides during the Cold War?
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Summary: An overly simplistic and inaccurate global paradigm.
Review: Mr. Huntington's categorization of the various religions and cultures of the world is overly simplistic and historically inaccurate. For example, his reference to the "Islamic Civilization" assumes a unity and cohesion among Islamic nations that simply does not exist. The various divisions that exist within Islam, and more importantly, the divisions that exist among Arab nations undermines Mr. Huntington's premise of a unified Islamic front ready to confront the West.
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Summary: An important primer for the 21st century.
Review: Here is another must read for the 21st Century. Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" puts an end to the Cold War and the clash of ideologies and brings the conversation back to a more normal and historic setting. This may not be the most important book that will be written on the subject of civilizational clashes, but it certainly gives an early preview of the main topic for the early decades of the 21st century. This books strengths are in the statistical evidences that the author cites for his discussion about the fault lines of civilizational conflict, and other areas that are generally used to support his contentions. Not to mention of course the volumes of research required to generate a serious book on a subject that most Western liberals would not want addressed. Not addressed because of the doubt cast upon the viability of Globalism and the "can't we all just get along" feel goodism that is modern Western liberalism. Such liberal thinking as evidenced by the Clinton administrations ongoing meddling in "fault line" conflicts in Haiti, the former Yugoslavia, and the muddled handling of the United State's Russian and China policies. The weakness of this book is the lack of conclusions drawn as to the current state of the West. A good companion reading would be Michael Kelley's "The Impulse of Power: Formative Ideals of Western Civilization". Huntington correctly identifies the power of religion in the rise and fall of civilizations, but fails to analyze the West's decline in relation to Western liberalism's intense hatred of the West's main religion - Christianity. In that same regard Huntington failed to make as strong an argument as he could for the singular most important contribution of the West, that being the concept of individual liberty. Huntington does however make a good argument against the multiculturalism of the Western liberal. Pointing out quite rightly the danger of creating a weak cleft culture that would be unable to face the onslaught of some of the world's resurgent civilizations. This argument is however all the more critical when coupled with the central contribution of the West, i.e. Liberty, and the lacking thereof in the characteristics of the other resurgent civilizations. In any event this book is a good primer for what stands to be an important topic in the years ahead.
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Summary: It is an exact future history in the making
Review: It is an exact tale of the future in the process of building up to be available for next generations.
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Summary: This could set back global understanding by decades.
Review: Huntington, the perennial handmaid of the power elite, apparently tries to advance cross-cultural understanding in this work. In fact, he sets it back considerably, or could if the book is taken seriously by powerful people. The major flaw is his persistent refusal to consider evidence & hypotheses which would undermine his thesis about recurrent clashes between core civilizations, notably the abundant data showing that different cultures CAN understand each other, and that cooperation IS possible. His analysis of relations between Christendom & Islam is especially wrongheaded, ignoring the institutional contacts & personal choices of medieval & early modern times which moderated conflicts. Instead, we get a stereotypical Orientalism made worse by Huntington's blissful unawareness. But then one should not look for the deeper insights into cultural encounters by relying on the journal "International Security." I give it 2 stars rather than 1 because of its scope & ambition. But ultimately, this book mostly proves that there is an important difference between "thought-provoking" and "provocative."
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Summary: It helps to clarify a very complex world.
Review: I travel worldwide as part of my job. It never ceases to amaze me how similar individuals seem to be but how different the groups we belong to behave. This book goes a long way in explaining the differences between cultures and gives Western thinkers a basis for understanding the world. The West has continued to harbour illusions about the rest of the world and has a collective guilt regarding our success's militarily and economically. In order to make sense of others, it is clear that we must first accept ourselves and understand how we are viewed by others. This book clearly explains the reality of shifting geopolitcal alliances. We had better pay heed to his warnings. China and Islam are both prepared to take our dominant place in the world. As our Eastern friends tells me all the time "You are like children, too busy making money and too selfish to see anything beyond your own needs". This book is excellent.
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Summary: Excellent anaylsis of changing international relations
Review: Huntington's thesis is a must read of any serious student of modern international relations. He provides excellent insight into the changing balance of power.
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