Playing out by the book?
ByJust looking at the events of the last few days, it doesn’t take long to see there is something greater that is going on in the world when it comes to our world’s civilizations, mainly between the countries of the West and those of Islam. With Iran’s UN standoff, Hamas’s election victory and now the burning of Danish flags in Islamic countries around the world some further analysis might be useful.
Anyone watching the events unfolding in front of us would be doing themselves a disservice if they do not read brilliant Harvard political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington’s book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order”. Our friend Rich Lowery at the National Review has called Huntington “the most brilliant political scientist in America” and even the liberal New York Times calls him “one of the most eminent political scientist in the world”.
Huntington’s book first published in 1996, five years before 9/11, spends page after page describing a future world where civilizations would realign and no longer clash based on political ideology like Democracy vs. Communism but on culture. In one chapter he actually draws a map of the Ukraine speaking to the inevitable showdown that will occur within the country between the people in the west who relate to Christian Europe and those in the East who relate to Orthodox Russia. The Orange Revolution in the Ukraine last year had to be gratifying for Huntington and just one example of the many calls he made including the outbreak in France last year with its Muslim community.
Do yourself a favor and pick it up.
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4 Comments
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm
What’s your cut on every mention you make of this book anyway? At least I shill my own titles when I post.
Just kidding. Huntington is a very good writer. While folks are it, they should check out Who Are We?, which is his take on the multi-cultural trend in modern America and what it will mean to this country in the next ten to twenty-five years.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:14 pm
I actually just started reading “Who Are We”.
And yes I do mention him often but that’s because it’s the current topic of discussion and he was not only first on the subject but dead on accurate!
February 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Let me know what you think. Very curious on your take.
Huntington’s definitely got a leg up over Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, which offered an ideal premise about the emerging global culture based on tech-driven economic growth. Unfortunately, Fukuyama tends to think that this will take place in a vaccuum, and totally discounted for the impending instability inherent to the fall of communism.
Can’t win ‘em all.
February 6th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Rick,
Have you noticed in the last few days the term “clash of civilizations” has been used to describe this whole Danish vs. Islam debacle? I’ve now seen the term used in several publications.
Huntington should have copyrighted the term, so he could get paid every time they use it.