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The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (平装)
by Samuel P. Huntington
| Category:
Current affairs, Social-economics, Nonfiction |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A scholarly, rigorously researched masterwork of political science and sociology with incredible insights on global politics. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 16 items |
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Henry (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Sam Huntington, one of the West's most eminent political scentists, presents a challenging framework for understanding the realitites of global politics in the next century. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the Cold War. |
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Zbigniew Brzezinski (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
An intellectual tour de force: bold, imaginative, and provocative. A seminal work that will revolutionize our understanding of international affairs. |
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Richard Bernstein (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
A benchmark for informed speculation on those always fascinating questions: Just where are we in history? What hidden hand is controlling our destiny? A searching reflection on our global state. |
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Francis Fukyama (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
The book is dazzling in its scope and grasp of the intricacies of contemporary global politics. |
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Michael Elliott (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
The book is studded with insights, flashes of rare brilliance, great learning, and in particular, an ability to see the familiar in a new and provocative way. |
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The New York Times Book Review (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
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. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations was, and still is, an indelibly important book in describing the order of the world in which we live. The books written in the early to mid-nineties that deal with international relations after the Cold War are legion. However, Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations is the cream that rises to the top… especially when its contents are judged against the happenings of the past decade.
The foundation of Huntington's thesis is that after the Cold War, instead of a liberal democratic and Leninist authoritarian bifurcation with the respective satellites, the world is and will continue to be divided along civilizational lines (plural not singular; and small "c" civilization not capital "C" as he points out). Initially, the author describes the definition of civilization as it applies in the book and then discusses the potentiality of a "universal civilization." Huntington then discuss and outlines one the most prescient and controversial aspects of the book. He emphatically argues that there is a difference in this world between Modernization and Westernization. According to him, one does not necessarily lead to other. In other words, it is possible for nation-states to Modernize without Westerniz- ing. In Huntington's view, in fact, Moderization without Westernization is the natural scenraio for non-Western cultures and it is also the preferable path. It is necessary for non-Western cultures to modernize without Westernizing because it allows these different civilization to retain their culture and what makes them different. According to Huntington, when a civilization begins to lose its identity and begins to cleavage, either ethnically, religiously, or culturally, instability results and violence erupts. One of the causes of the decline in the power of the West is the inability of Westerners to see that their culture is not universal simply becasue it triumphed over communism in the Cold War.
A corollary to the West's relative decline in power, according to Huntington, is the potential for intense hot or cold conflict with Islam and/or China and East Asia as a whole. In the current global climate, the author was half right in his prediction regarding the end result. However, how we got there in reality differs from the process outlined in the book. Huntington, unrelentingly endorses the role of the nation-state as the preliminary source of power and diplomacy in the post-Cold War world. However, the West's current conflict with radical Islam did not develop as a result of traditional international relations. The "War on Terror" is not a result of the actions of traditional nation-states, but of what Tom Friedman terms "super-empowered individuals."
Huntington's failure to predict the global relevance and importance that nomadic terrorists will play in international relations is a forgivable sin. However, there is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in his book and what the implications would be of such activity by those Islamic radicals led by Osama bin Laden. Huntington, like post academics, pundits, and policy-makers failed to recognize the role that these "super-empowered individuals" would play.
Ultimately, the world did indeed develop along the lines that Huntington predicted, that is to say "civilizationally." However, how we got from there to here developed in a fashion different from what he predicted. In other words, the nation-state, while still important, was not the vehicle that overtly created the tension and conflict between the West and Islam.
Finally, I found it interesting that in a book dedicated to explaining how the world developed as it did and how it will continue to ebb and flow, there was no mention made of the Rwandan genocide which occured only 2 years previous to the book's publication. It concerns me when 800,000 individuals are killed in a "cummunal war" and no mention of it is made in a book dedicated to explaining the causes and effects of such conflicts. Furthermore, little mention is made of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict and its implications for relations between the West and Islam. In retrospect, Huntington probably focused too much of his attention on East Asia and specifically China and Japan.
As I mentioned, probably the most fascinating aspect of The Clash of Civilizations is Huntington's discussion of Moderization as compared with Westernization. Furthermore, Huntington brilliantly predicted the rise of what he terms "fault-line wars" and "cummunal conflicts" and the role that "primary," "secondary," and "tertiary states" (inlcuding "Core States") will play in resolving such conflicts.
I would love for Huntington to significantly update this book and for him to describe how his predictions have either come to pass or not. The author's final thesis, that multiculturalism is ruining Western civilization, is another fascinating and somewhat surprising conclusion. For a more detailed explanation of how this is happening in the United States, one should read his article in the March / April issue of Foreign Policy magazine.
Overall, The Clash of Civilizations was an incredible and imformative read.
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An Israeli reader (MSL quote), Israel
<2007-01-10 00:00>
This book, despite being controversial, offers a magnificent scheme for understanding the big picture of today's politics. While before War World II the world was divided by nation states, and in the cold war, it was ideology that defined the blocks, today it is civilizations. The main civilizations who are now struggling for domination are the West, the Chinese, the Indians and the Islam. There are other civilizations, like Japan, the Africans and the Orthodoxy.
The book discusses the balance of power between the civilizations, and its transformation due to economy and demographics, mainly the decline of the West. Graphs, tables and researches that shed light at the balance of power accompany this discussion.
The analysis leads to interesting conclusions: inter-civilization conflicts are more likely draw allies of the involved sides; therefore they have to be dealt cautiously. The scenario that the author foresees is that a Chinese invasion to Vietnam draws American intervention in Vietnam's favor, which eventually becomes World War III: the West, the Orthodoxy and the Hindus vs. China, Japan and the Muslims. While you don't have to subscribe to this prophecy, it does show the dangers of intervention in internal affairs of other civilizations.
Another point is the importance of "core states" to moderate conflicts. Russia, the core state of the Orthodoxy, can easily affect Serbia and make her end the war. On the other hand, Muslims, lacking a core state, are considered unstable civilization, as no one has enough influence to force fighting Muslims out of war.
While the author discusses the Yugoslavian conflict adequately, he surprisingly disregards another famous inter-civilization conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Despite the major propaganda that is being used in the conflict, it does not have such an important influence on the clash of civilizations.
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
This book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the modern world. This is an expanded version of an article originally published in Foreign Affairs in 1993. The book, like the previous article, is clearly written and is for a far wider audience than just those who read the political science literature. The ten years or so since the original publication of the article have in my opinion only served to highlight how prescient Professor Huntington was. The thesis of this book is that the world is divided into several different civilizations, each vying for power and influence. He defines the main civilizations as: the West (North America, Western Europe and others such as Australia and New Zealand), Orthodox Christian (Slavic), Islam, China and Hindu. (Latin America and Africa are considered only briefly.) The 21st century, he predicts, will be one of conflict between these civilizations, rather than one of conflict between the ideologies of capitalism or communism. One need only look at a newspaper to see the validity of this prediction. These conflicts are not new, but are much more important now that each civilization has the power to destroy the civilized world.
This book and the article upon which it is based have been severely criticized on many fronts (see The Clash of Civilizations? The debate for the original article and some of this criticism). The strongest criticism has come from those who reject the idea that there is a clash between Islam and the West, but the events since the publication of this book (most clearly the riots of 2005 and early 2006) clearly show that there is indeed a deep- seated conflict between the two. For some, it is hard to accept Huntington's statement that - "The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power".
Professor Huntington does not follow the line of political correctness when he says - "The preservation of the United States and the West requires the renewal of Western identity", but he makes a strong case for the validity of this idea. He calls for cultural coexistence rather than trying to create a universal culture, and - "In a multicultural world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities". He fears that failure in this task will lead to a nuclear war that will destroy the civilizations involved. Time is only showing how right he was and still is.
One cannot convey the importance of this book in a brief review. All one can do is hope that it inspires you to read this very prescient book. If you do you will understand more of what is going on in the world of the 21st century. |
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Tom Anderson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Many thought Huntington was a racist/ethnocentric pessimist prior to 911, now we must think of him as a prophet. He accurately points out the many dangers of globalization...
Huntington, a noted political scientist and former head of the US National Security Council (among other accolades), has gone as far as to count the number of "intracivilization" VS "intercivilization" conflicts among civilizations over the last several years, and points to very scary trends among Islamic nations/cultures.
In terms of his attitude on globalization he points out that nation states seem to be "suffering losses in sovereignty, functions, and power...state borders in short, have become increasingly permeable" and, he does not necessarily view this as a wholly good thing, and identifies a possible paradigm referred to as Sheer Chaos where "the breakdown of govern- mental authority; the breakup of states; the intensification of tribal, ethnic, and religious conflict; the emergence of international criminal mafias; refugees multiplying into the tens of millions; the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; the spread of terrorism; the prevalence of massacres and ethnic cleansing"(ibid). Whoa, definitely not a "better life for us all"!
By the end of Clash of Civilizations Huntington does not seem to be much more optimistic "The rise of transnational corporations producing economic goods is increasingly matched by the rise of transnational criminal mafias, drug cartels, and terrorists gangs violently assaulting Civilization. Law and order is the first prerequisite of civilization and in much of the world...it appears to be evaporating...civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism...a global Dark Ages, possibly descending on humanity."
Huntington offers some albeit slight hope not in global consumers or corporations but rather, "The future of both peace and civilization depend upon understanding and cooperation among political, spiritual, and intellectual leaders of the worlds major civilizations."
Huntington seems to indicate that a solution should entail some sort of international cooperation. Perhaps the current trend of globalization is not totally novel, and may not be the panacea we hope.
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