The Clash of Civilizations: And the Remaking of World Order

Picturing a future of accelerated conflict between civilizations threatening to dominate world politics, this classic study of the post-Cold War situation argues that an international order based on civilizations is the best safeguard against war.

The thesis of the provocative and potentially important Clash of Civilizations is that 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. --Christine Buttery