Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clash of Values, cultures and interest., 29 Jan 2003
Dividing the world into 7 major civilisations, in this book Huntington argues that in the post cold war era, countries tend to re-evaluate their position in the world in terms of identity. After the cold war, during which the division and conflict was between two ideologies, relations between countries in the post cold war era are increasingly shaped by cultural and civilizational factors, thus most countries tend to identify themselves in terms of civilisations.
The collapse of communism had been seen by many western scholars as an indication and a validation of the superiority of western thoughts. One example of this is Fukuyama who argues in his book The End Of History And The last Man that liberal democracy is the last stage of the evolution of the political and social systems through history. To add to this, due to its unchallenged military and its superiority since the fall of the communism, the west (mainly the US) has been able to defend its interests by defining those interests as the interests of the world community. Due to this the west is trying to impose its double standard rule on other nations using untrue terminology to describe this rule. For example, democracy is promoted but not if it brings Islamic parties to power, non-proliferation is preached for Iran but not for Israel, human rights are an issue with china but not with the US allies, aggression against oil-owning Kuwaitis is massively repulsed but not against non-oil-owning Bosnian. Huntington argues that the west won the world not by the superiority of its values, ideas or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence, and as a reaction to the arrogant western approach the revival of non-western religions is the most powerful manifestation of anti-westernism. A fault line war, war between two countries or groups from different civilisations, is the most dangerous war, as it will evolve to an international conflict involving other countries, each to support its civilizational-kin country. To avoid such clash he stresses the need to alter the Security Council to be a civilizational council, which means that every civilization should be represented by its core state. As well he stresses the need for the west to avoid interfering in such conflicts.
In his study Huntington is predicting two major conflicts with the west (represented by the US) in the twenty first century, the first one is with Islam, the second is the sinic civilisation (represented by China). These conflicts are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness. I think it is important to mention that Huntington's shallow interpretation of Islam is based on pre-conceived ideas, which lack the needed depth and objectiveness. Finally, I believe this book is a valuable piece of work for understanding how international affairs are shaped.
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66 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Convincing arguments well-presented., 24 Aug 1999
By A Customer
Huntington's central thesis is that major conflicts are now and have always been defined by clashes between fundamentally different civilisations rather than between similar nations, and that major conflicts occur on the boundaries between them. His theories apply not only to international conflict (so for example World War II can be seen as a conflict between Eastern and Western European civilisation and between Western and Japanese) but also to internal ones where countries lie on the "fault lines" between civilisations (so the troubles in Yugoslavia are viewed as conflicts between Eastern European and Islamic civilisations and so on). Huntington identifies the scope and causes of conflict, examines the politics of post-colonialism and national identity and surveys many other potential sources of conflict awaiting the civilisations currently competing for resources and prestige. Rather similar to Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" in its breadth and scope, this book has much to say about the nature and causes of conflict. At times Huntington seems a little alarmist about the decline of Western civilisation, but his often strident tone can be ignored and the weight of evidence allowed to speak for itself.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prophetic and gripping, but slightly dated, 15 April 2007
This book was written as a prophecy about what the author felt would characterise the C21st. Now that we are nearly a decade into the C21st, we have the ability to look back and see if he was right. If yes, then this book was prophetic and its lessons should be learned. If not, then he is wrong, and the book is little more than an airport novel.
On one or two dimensions, Huntingdon has been extraordinarily accurate, predicting that Islamic extremism would become the number one security threat to the West in the C21st. Ominously, he predicted that the West would be driven to attack nations that possessed WMDs in the fear they would pass them on to terrorists. This is the Bush doctrine, written before Bush was even an elected official, never mind President. Equally ominous, he predicted that Islamic radicals would rally to the cause of any Muslim state attacked in such a way, and the influx of foreign insurgents into Iraq confirms this. Interestingly, the author predicts that the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be very prominent in the C21st, yet never actually names the organisations by name (in the case of Al Qaeda because it did not adopt its current name until several years after the book was written).
Huntingdon is slightly inaccurate in his prediction that China would become more bellicose and confrontational. At least so far, China has been warm towards the West, with trade deals and cultural exchanges flourishing. Another weakness of the book is his rather arbitrary definition of societies, and his notion that a "core state" would drive forward its respective civilisation. This is not the case, with supra-national agencies taking the place of "core states".
Overall, the book is highly recommended. However, given its relative age, it would be advisable to buy a more recent book on geopolitics as well, to top up the introduction that this book provides.
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