Rating: 
Summary: The Starting Point for Post Cold War Models
Review: Though Samuel Huntington has been attacked from many quarters, his model for the present situation facting the post cold war period is the best. When attacking ideas his critics should remember one basic rule: "to beat an idea you should have your own idea." Hungtington, though not perfect, makes the best idea, model, for the coming years of realignment by nations and civilizations. Perhaps the best reasoning, and perhaps why he is attacked so, is that Huntington does not mind to state what others would consider non-PC. He attually believes that there are substancial differences among the civlizations that that these differences matter. With special care and proof he lists how Western Civilization differs from others. For those in the PC camp this is scandelous. For others it will be a breath of fresh air.
For anyone wishing to begin thinking about how our world is shaping itself after the fall of Soviet Russia and the US/Russia power game, this is the book to begin with. Most others are merely a response to Huntington.
Rating:
Summary: Reality Check
Review: This book is a dry read. It does not have any political affiliations. It would be a great read for naive people who view the world politics and movements through a rose-colored glasses. The books presents facts as they are and stresses the point that the current state of affairs in the world is a natural continuation of the civilizational divide that has been with us for hundreds of years and will continue to be with us for the foreseeable future. As an additional read I would also recommend "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by David Landes and "What Went Wrong" by Bernard Lewis.
Rating: 
Summary: Ultimately flawed but incisive analysis
Review: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Samuel P. Huntington
Touchstone Books, 1996.
367 pages. Shortly after the fall of Communism euphoria gave way to uncertainty and confusion. The policy of containment, largely authored by the brilliant George F. Kennan, had been a fixture of American foreign policy for nearly a half century and the Soviet implosion stimulated vigorous debate among foreign policy intellectuals regarding the nature of the new world order. Was it truly "the end of history" as Francis Fukuyama asserted, or was the world rendered more vulnerable as cultures, rather than nation-states or ideas, served as the renewed source of human conflict? In The Clash of Civilizations Samuel Huntington elaborates on his seminal article published in Foreign Affairs that categorically refutes the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy. Huntington describes the post-Cold War world as "multipolar and multicivilizational" , and rejects the contention that globalization and Westernization follow parallel paths. Civilizations matter because they appeal to basic questions of human identity. Whereas Kennan's world was a bifurcated one of Communists and anti-Communists, Huntington's geopolitical arrangement is a multipolar world consisting of Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Japanese, and Buddhist civilizations. In Huntington's civilizational paradigm, borders lose significance because civilizational conflict, which had previously been subordinated to ideological conflict, transcends the often arbitrary demarcations of nation-states. Although Huntington's thoughtful and provocative ideas provide alternative means of deciphering international (or inter-civilizational) events, his excessive reliance on vast generalizations renders his thesis largely untenable.
The pillars of Huntington's thesis rest on the assumption that civilizations matter. Civilizations encapsulate the fundamental elements of identity, such as race, religion, language, culture, and history. In his critique of existing paradigms, Huntington deduces the logic of identifying civilizations as the most significant contemporary geopolitical actors because civilizations "provide an easily grasped and intelligible framework for understanding the world" . Although Huntington contends that his civilizational paradigm "sets forth a relatively simple but not too simple map," as one of his critics noted, "because [his] brush is broad, his specifics are vulnerable to attack." Huntington's paradigm is so generic that its utility is eroded by its failure to account for numerous inconsistencies. Events such as Turkey's unsuccessful attempt to enter the European Union and Russia's dogged support of their Slavic Serbian brethren in the Balkans conflict redeem a cultural or civilizational approach. However, Huntington's paradigm cannot account for the multicivilizational peacekeeping force that continues to preserve peace in the Balkans today, or the complicity of several Islamic nations in the second Anglo-American (decisively not Western) war against Iraq.
While Huntington's paradigm can provide another lens through which to analyze historical or even current events, it is too fragile a framework for actual application in foreign policy. Due to Huntington's prediction of international alignment along cultural-civilizational lines, his implication on the future of international relations is grim indeed. Whereas ideas are mutable and conflicts between nation-states soluble through diplomacy or negotiation, civilizational composites change over generations. A foreign policy based on a civilizational paradigm in the rough hands of inexperienced or myopic statesmen can easily degenerate into a policy based on xenophobia and cultural relativism, with the ugly head of genocide lurking just beneath the surface. Huntington states, "A dangerous source of a global intercivilizational war is the shifting balance of power among civilizations and their core states." Yet his proposed solution for America's relative decline vis-Ã -vis the Islamic and Sinic worlds of "adopting an Atlanticist policy of close cooperation with...European partners" exacerbates civilizational conflict. Huntington's model presupposes "the clash of civilizations", which, with strict adherence, denies valuable opportunities of engagement and cooperation that transcend linguistic, religious, cultural, and indeed, civilizational differences.
Huntington's incisive analysis and depth of research make The Clash of Civilizations required reading for any serious student of international relations. Despite its shortcomings, the civilizational paradigm serves, in the very least, as a primer for a more astute model that includes the relevance of culture and civilization. Both pedantic and stimulating, Huntington's thesis is a weighty contender in the current clash of paradigms.
Rating:
Summary: A generally even-handed hypothesis for ordering the world
Review: Samuel P. Huntington is a figure both loved and hated among certain circles of academia, mostly due to his often controversial claims (such as his recent article in Foreign Policy, "The Hispanic Challenge," which takes a theme of the Clash of Civilizations even further).
Huntington makes a fairly convincing case, if somewhat simplistic, for ordering the world according to civilizations in the post-Cold War era. Rather than repeat what other reviewers have said regarding this matter, I have chosen to address two concerns that I have seen regarding this book, each of which are misconceived.
The first concern is that this book somehow justifies American hostility and imposition of democracy in China and Islamic countries, the two challengers perceived by Huntington as perhaps most threatening to global stability. On the contrary, Huntington argues for the recognition that world is multicultural, and that "Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous" (Ch. 12). Far from suggest we invade everybody and forcibly impose democratic regimes in places where democracy may not 'stick' due to a lack of Western values, he instead argues for the recognition of a multicultural world. "To preserve Western civilization in the face of declining Western power," he argues it is in the interest of the United States and Europe to: integrate politically, economically, and militarily; encourage "Westernization" of the already Western-leaning Latin American countries; restrain conventional and unconventional military development in China and Islamic countries; and "most important, recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilzatonal world" (Ch. 12). Huntington is ultimately arguing for a peaceful world order rather than a West which runs amok, imposing its values on other states.
The second concern I've seen crop up is that Huntington is entirely a moral relativist due to his belief that the world is made up of differing cultures and value systems. He actually argues that culture is relative, while morality is absolute. As an example, he provides the case of Singapore which in the early 1990s tried to identify a common identity among its Chinese, Malay Muslim, and Indian Hindu/Sikh communities. A White Paper was created defining the "Shared Values" of Singaporeans: "Nation before ethnic community and society above self; family as the basic unit of society ; regard and community support for the individual; consensus instead of contention; racial and religious harmony" (Ch. 12). This White Paper, he argues, integrated elements of each member culture, as well as the Western emphasis on individuality (ostensibly in order to discourage nepotism implicit in Confucian values of hierarchy and family). Rather than attempt to establish a Judeo-Christian/Western standard of world values, such as is implicit in the UN Declaration on Human Rights, Huntington believes that common morality between all cultures does exist and must form the foundation of an international order.
I recommend this book to anyone with a desire to understand international conflict, and particularly the role culture may play in it. Do not take all of it at face value, of course; read it with a critical eye and what you derive from it will be manifold more than you would have otherwise. This book deserves to be on any political scientist's bookshelf sheerly due to the influence it has had, regardless of whether you agree with its argument or not. Love him or hate him, when Huntington speaks, the entire world listens.
Rating: 
Summary: A non-useful oversimplification of international affairs
Review: This book was written around the close of the Cold War with the apparent goal of answering the question "The end of the Cold War brings to closure the old boundaries and conflicts... what fault lines will replace them?" I have great respect for Huntington as a historian but I found the overall thesis of this book to be quite questionable.
Huntington attempts to divide the world into a set of civilizations and attempts to portray recent situations in countries like the Ukraine, conflict between India and Pakistan as being the new sort of conflict taking the place of Cold War era conflicts. While the specific situations Huntington uses for examples are quite real, I find his overarching theme quite questionable. For every situation in the modern world that can be described in terms of Huntington's model, there seems to be a conflict that cannot be described in terms of this model. Where for example, is the rift between the United States and countries like Japan and Singapore, for example?
For these reasons I do not see how this book provides useful tools for analyzing international conflicts in the post Cold War period. Even recent issues between the United States and Middle Eastern countries, which might seem to be a poster child for Huntington's approach, the intricate details seem to be much more important than any abstraction of a clash of civilizations.
Rating: 
Summary: Be careful
Review: I've noticed that the front of this book has been repackaged with an American flag contrasting with a green Islamic flag. Talk about false advertising. This book is not about the current post sept 11 war on terror. It is a bold thesis about future intercivilizational relations in a post colonial, post-unipolar world order. Basically, Huntington predicts that all of the world civilizations will modernize, and then attempts to determine who will get along with who, and who will not get along with who. Basically China -Islam vs everybody---I think he is way off base in many of his PREDICTIONS. A great book if you are extremely well read. A terrible book if you are not well read, and are trying to get a basic understanding of the world around you. If that is the case, read history, the more ancient the better. The older it gets(excluding religion, the less biased it is. Also, read stuff from the west's intellectual history.
Rating:
Summary: A controversial book
Review: Do we now have a unified world? No. There are numerous languages, religions, and cultures. And not all of them have the same attitudes towards what some of us in the West see as inevitable and uniform modernization. In addition, demographic changes raise issues such as the potential Islamization of Europe.
Huntington warns us that all this implies that there will be cultural clashes in the future. He says the dangerous ones "are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness." This is indeed a controversial statement. After all, such clashes are by no means an obvious necessity. Nor is it at all clear that in the absence of such external issues, Western society would not have very serious internal problems with totalitarianism and wars.
The author notes that Islam has "bloody borders," and he gives five possible reasons for it. First, Islam itself may be inherently aggressive. Second, there may be the historical legacy of the creation of so many borders with non-Muslims. Third, Islam's absolutism may be responsible. Fourth, there is no Islamic "core state." And fifth, it may be simply that there has been a recent demographic explosion in many Muslim societies that has made a large number of unemployed males readily available.
Huntington says that the future dominance of Western civilization is possible but not inevitable. This is also a controversial statement, given that there is great uncertainty both about what Western civilization is and how powerful it really is. And this leads to some (you guessed it, controversial) conclusions! Huntington recommends greater cooperation among Western nations. In addition, he wants to maintain Western technological and military superiority over other civilizations, in particular over Islamic and Sinic countries. And he advises us to avoid interfering in the affairs of other civilizations if at all possible.
It's an interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reconsideration of Recent International Relations
Review: Whether or not one agrees with Samuel P. Huntington's entire thesis, everyone should recognize that "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" is an exceptionally important book that deserves wide readership and sustained debate. I find it a thoughtful and provocative thesis that helps explain much that has taken place in international relations in the last fifteen years.
Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington presents a powerful thesis to explain what has happened in the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The thrust of Huntington's argument rejects the notion that the world will inevitably succumb to Western values that seemed so triumphant in the early 1990s. On the contrary, Huntington contends that the West's influence in the world is waning because of growing resistance to its values and the reassertion by non-Westerners of their own cultures. He argues that the world will see in the twenty-first century an increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts among countries and cultures basing their identities on long-held traditions. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures--Western, Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African--in current struggles across the globe. In so doing, Huntington successfully shifts the discussion of the post-cold war world from ideology, ethnicity, politics, and economics to culture--especially to the religious basis of culture. Huntington rightly warns against facile generalizations about the world becoming one, so common in the early 1990s, and points out the resilience of civilizations to foreign secular influences.
Huntington asserts that there are nine major civilizations in the post-1990 era. The dominant civilization at present is the "West," characterized by the United States, Canada, and the nations of Western Europe. There are also Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic (Chinese), Hindu, Orthodox (Russia and other Slavic nations), Buddhist, and Japanese civilizations. Each has different traditions, priorities, and institutions. Each also misunderstands the other civilizations of the world. In the post-cold war era, no matter how seemingly desperate confrontations within these civilizations may seem--such as the trials over northern Ireland--they have little potential for escalation beyond the civilization in which they occur. Confrontations among civilizations, however, have a great potential to escalate into large conflagrations, including world wars. The civilizations capable of forming meaningful ties to other civilizations, creating alliances not just for defensive purposes but also as a means of broadening engagement, have the greatest possibility for thriving in this new international arena. The West, Huntington believes, should give up the idea of exporting its values and expand the possibility of its survival through stronger alliances with other civilizations.
I believe this is an intriguing idea that requires consideration in my own work on the history of spaceflight. For example, the International Space Station (ISS), being constructed by the United States with 16 other nations, represents the largest and most complex international peacetime activity in history. While the space station has been sold as a means of undertaking pathbreaking scientific research, that may not be the most important reason for supporting it. At a fundamental level, as Huntington points out, the geopolitical system of the post-cold war era requires its continuation and the establishment of other large-scale international programs that enhance engagement with other civilizations.
While difficult, it is exceedingly necessary, especially in a post September 11th world. One is reminded of the quote from Wernher von Braun in 1960, "we can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming." Perhaps the hardest part of spaceflight is not the scientific and technological challenges of operating in an exceptionally foreign and hostile environment but in the down-to-Earth environment of rough-and-tumble international and domestic politics. But even so, cooperative space endeavors have been richly rewarding and overwhelmingly useful, from all manner of scientific, technical, social, and political perspectives. This is especially true of the ISS, which has helped stabilize relations with many other nations, and therefore mitigates some of the divisiveness that Huntington perceives in this clash of civilizations. Just as surely as the Apollo program helped the United States ensure its place as a leader of the world in the cold war, the International Space Station serves a critical international role in the post-cold war world.
In the clash of civilizations of the twenty-first century, the ISS offers a testbed for civilizational alliances along the lines that Huntington identifies. From the beginning the West adopted the project and brought in a second great civilization in Japan. In 1993 the Orthodox civilization, using Huntington's terminology for Russia and other Slavic peoples, joined the program. Perhaps the difficulty of working with the Russians has been largely the result of these strikingly different civilizations. Brazil and other nations of the Latin American civilization also want to join the program, as does India. China has also made overtures about the desire to become a part of the ISS effort. Despite the very real challenges that would result from incorporating these new partners into the program, their inclusion would advance the cause of creating alliances with other civilizations. This could serve ultimately as a means of closing the gap between nations rather than widening it. At a fundamental level, the International Space Station may serve the larger objectives of American foreign policy better than many other initiatives that offer fewer prospects for success.
In the end, Huntington has offered a framework from which to analyze recent historical developments that are applicable across a broad spectrum, including the history of space exploration. I highly recommend this book as a departure point for further study about the post-cold war world.
Rating:
Summary: A definitive read of the early 21st century
Review: This book should definitely find its way into the reading list of anyone who wishes the see the `big picture' of the new world order and international politics. Critics of the book claim that Samuel Huntington over-simplified the emerging world order into a mere paradigm of seven major civilizations. I beg to differ. Without some simplification and assumption, can we ever discuss and probe into the intricacies of the workings of international politics? Furthermore, Samuel Huntington has never denied the existence of other factors which will come into play in shaping the developments of the world. What he did was to lay out a framework for laymen like us to better understand the potentially complicating nature of contemporary global politics, and to seek to portend the state of world politics, after the fall of communism, for the reference of policymakers.
It is perfectly reasonable to postulate that, for the decades to come, global politics will be shaped along the lines of civilization. After all, the tendency to mix with `likes' is intrinsic in human nature. Even birds of the same feather flock together. The revival of Asian cultural identities, the rise of China as a global player, and the conflict between Islam fundamentalists and the West, still hold true today, eight years since the book was written. Although Samuel recognizes the alignment and regrouping of countries according to civilizations, he maintains that one should seek common space in the kaleidoscope of diversity. This progressive viewpoint, along with three approaches which he suggested to ensure world peace - abstention, joint mediation and commonalities rule will resonate well with many.
Cogently argued and meticulously researched yet lucidly expounded, "The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of world order" is indeed a book for the masses. Unlike its counterpart which predicts the dominance of liberal democracy, "The Clash of Civilizations" looks set to remain relevant in the years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Versus
Review: For every problem, there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken
If you're looking for a deep, nuanced understanding of the current (apparent) conflict between "The West" and "Islam" then you won't find it in Huntington. First of all, he ignores the fact that "The West" - while different from Islam - is heterogeneous in its stance on foreign affairs. To Huntington, the essential conflict in the current era is the clash of civilizations between the west and islam. But this is not exactly the case! Much of the west has very good relations with islam, and much of islam has very good relations with the US, even. The violence is between radical fundamentalist (often terrorist) groups who resent American (and to some degree "western") meddling in middle east affairs on one side and radical industrialist alumni of the Project for a New American Century on the other.
It's writing like Huntington's that animated the Project for a New American Century's us-versus-them approach, even before 9/11. We can't allow this kind of simplistic (even sloppy) scholarship dictate foreign policy.
The civilizations concept flies in the face of most contemporary scholarship on globalization. Look for some Amazon.com lists on globalization and disregard anything that posits such a simplistic and essentialistic conflict.
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