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Samuel P. Huntington

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order Paperback – August 2, 2011

by Samuel P. Huntington (Author)

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The classic study of post-Cold War international relations, more relevant than ever in the post-9/11 world, with a new foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Since its initial publication, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become a classic work of international relations and one of the most influential books ever written about foreign affairs. An insightful and powerful analysis of the forces driving global politics, it is as indispensable to our understanding of American foreign policy today as the day it was published. As former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says in his new foreword to the book, it “has earned a place on the shelf of only about a dozen or so truly enduring works that provide the quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time.”

Samuel Huntington explains how clashes between civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace but also how an international order based on civilizations is the best safeguard against war. Events since the publication of the book have proved the wisdom of that analysis. The 9/11 attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the threat of civilizations but have also shown how vital international cross-civilization cooperation is to restoring peace. As ideological distinctions among nations have been replaced by cultural differences, world politics has been reconfigured. Across the globe, new conflicts—and new cooperation—have replaced the old order of the Cold War era.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order explains how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global politics. These developments challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” Western ideals, and intensify intercivilization conflict over such issues as nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy. The Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilizations. Huntington offers a strategy for the West to preserve its unique culture and emphasizes the need for people everywhere to learn to coexist in a complex, multipolar, muliticivilizational world.

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Print length

368 pages
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English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster
Publication date

August 2, 2011
Dimensions

6.13 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

1451628978
ISBN-13

978-1451628975

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become one of the most influential books of the new wartime era.”
—Patrick Healy, The Boston Globe

About the Author

Samuel P. Huntington was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University, where he was also the director of the John M. Olin Institute for Stategic Studies and the chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He was the director of security planning for the National Security Council in the Carter administration, the founder and coeditor of Foreign Policy, and the president of the American Political Science Association.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Clash Of Civilizations and the Remaking Of World Order Chapter 1

The New Era in World Politics

INTRODUCTION: FLAGS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

On January 3, 1992, a meeting of Russian and American scholars took place in the auditorium of a government building in Moscow. Two weeks earlier the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and the Russian Federation had become an independent country. As a result, the statue of Lenin which previously graced the stage of the auditorium had disappeared and instead the flag of the Russian Federation was now displayed on the front wall. The only problem, one American observed, was that the flag had been hung upside down. After this was pointed out to the Russian hosts, they quickly and quietly corrected the error during the first intermission.

The years after the Cold War witnessed the beginnings of dramatic changes in peoples’ identities and the symbols of those identities. Global politics began to be reconfigured along cultural lines. Upside-down flags were a sign of the transition, but more and more the flags are flying high and true, and Russians and other peoples are mobilizing and marching behind these and other symbols of their new cultural identities.

On April 18, 1994, two thousand people rallied in Sarajevo waving the flags of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. By flying those banners, instead of U.N., NATO, or American flags, these Sarajevans identified themselves with their fellow Muslims and told the world who were their real and not-so-real friends.

On October 16, 1994, in Los Angeles 70,000 people marched beneath “a sea of Mexican flags” protesting Proposition 187, a referendum measure which would deny many state benefits to illegal immigrants and their children. Why are they “walking down the street with a Mexican flag and demanding that this country give them a free education?” observers asked. “They should be waving the American flag.” Two weeks later more protestors did march down the street carrying an American flag—upside down. These flag displays ensured victory for Proposition 187, which was approved by 59 percent of California voters.

In the post-Cold War world flags count and so do other symbols of cultural identity, including crosses, crescents, and even head coverings, because culture counts, and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people. People are discovering new but often old identities and marching under new but often old flags which lead to wars with new but often old enemies.

One grim Weltanschauung for this new era was well expressed by the Venetian nationalist demagogue in Michael Dibdin’s novel, Dead Lagoon: “There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are. These are the old truths we are painfully rediscovering after a century and more of sentimental cant. Those who deny them deny their family, their heritage, their culture, their birthright, their very selves! They will not lightly be forgiven.” The unfortunate truth in these old truths cannot be ignored by statesmen and scholars. For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations.

The central theme of this book is that culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world. The five parts of this book elaborate corollaries to this main proposition.

Part I: For the first time in history global politics is both multipolar and multicivilizational; modernization is distinct from Westernization and is producing neither a universal civilization in any meaningful sense nor the Westernization of non-Western societies.

Part II: The balance of power among civilizations is shifting: the West is declining in relative influence; Asian civilizations are expanding their economic, military, and political strength; Islam is exploding demographically with destabilizing consequences for Muslim countries and their neighbors; and non-Western civilizations generally are reaffirming the value of their own cultures.

Part III: A civilization-based world order is emerging: societies sharing cultural affinities cooperate with each other; efforts to shift societies from one civilization to another are unsuccessful; and countries group themselves around the lead or core states of their civilization.

Part IV: The West’s universalist pretensions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China; at the local level fault line wars, largely between Muslims and non-Muslims, generate “kin-country rallying,” the threat of broader escalation, and hence efforts by core states to halt these wars.

Part V: The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies. Avoidance of a global war of civilizations depends on world leaders accepting and cooperating to maintain the multicivilizational character of global politics.

A MULTIPOLAR, MULTICIVILIZATIONAL WORLD

In the post-Cold War world, for the first time in history, global politics has become multipolar and multicivilizational. During most of human existence, contacts between civilizations were intermittent or nonexistent. Then, with the beginning of the modern era, about A.D. 1500, global politics assumed two dimensions. For over four hundred years, the nation states of the West — Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Germany, the United States, and others — constituted a multipolar international system within Western civilization and interacted, competed, and fought wars with each other. At the same time, Western nations also expanded, conquered, colonized, or decisively influenced every other civilization (Map 1.1). During the Cold War global politics became bipolar and the world was divided into three parts. A group of mostly wealthy and democratic societies, led by the United States, was engaged in a pervasive ideological, political, economic, and, at times, military competition with a group of somewhat poorer communist societies associated with and led by the Soviet Union. Much of this conflict occurred in the Third World outside these two camps, composed of countries which often were poor, lacked political stability, were recently independent, and claimed to be nonaligned (Map 1.2).

In the late 1980s the communist world collapsed, and the Cold War international system became history. In the post-Cold War world, the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural. Peoples and nations are attempting to answer the most basic question humans can face: Who are we? And they are answering that question in the traditional way human beings have answered it, by reference to the things that mean most to them. People define themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, language, history, values, customs, and institutions. They identify with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, nations, and, at the broadest level, civilizations. People use politics not just to advance their interests but also to define their identity. We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against.

Nation states remain the principal actors in world affairs. Their behavior is shaped as in the past by the pursuit of power and wealth, but it is also shaped by cultural preferences, commonalities, and differences. The most important groupings of states are no longer the three blocs of the Cold War but rather the world’s seven or eight major civilizations (Map 1.3). Non-Western societies, particularly in East Asia, are developing their economic wealth and creating the basis for enhanced military power and political influence. As their power and self-confidence increase, non-Western societies increasingly assert their own cultural values and reject those “imposed” on them by the West. The “international system of the twenty-first century,” Henry Kissinger has noted, “… will contain at least six major powers — the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Russia, and probably India — as well as a multiplicity of medium-sized and smaller countries.”1 Kissinger’s six major powers belong to five very different civilizations, and in addition there are important Islamic states whose strategic locations, large populations, and/or oil resources make them influential in world affairs. In this new world, local politics is the politics of ethnicity; global politics is the politics of civilizations. The rivalry of the superpowers is replaced by the clash of civilizations.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1451628978
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1451628975
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #10,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Asian Politics
- #10 in National & International Security (Books)
- #21 in History & Theory of Politics
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1,585 ratings

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Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel P. Huntington

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Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard and former chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He authored and edited more than dozen books.

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Customers find this book to be an excellent source of information and a must-read for students of foreign policy, with one noting it's essential reading for our time. Moreover, the book receives positive feedback for its well-written content, interesting theories, and ability to help understand the modern world. Additionally, customers appreciate its relevance and usefulness for extrapolating future events. However, the pacing receives mixed reactions.

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86 customers mention "Readability"72 positive14 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as essential reading for our time and a must-read, with one customer noting it is more concise.

"Great book. Absolutely necessary for an adequate understanding of the modern world. Plus a great read, scholarly work with good documentation" Read more

"Excellent read. Its so relevant that it is borderline frightening." Read more

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"Given as a gift. Great read. Interesting written early-mid 1990's and still seems relevant." Read more

66 customers mention "Insight"63 positive3 negative

Customers find the book insightful, helping them understand the modern world and providing brilliant analysis.

"It was more than I expected. Great analysis, and more details about tremendous vary of civilizations which I didn't know before" Read more

"Insightful, thoughtful analysis of geopolitical evolution and the roots of future global conflicts...." Read more

"...Huntington's incisive analysis and depth of research make The Clash of Civilizations required reading for any serious student of international..." Read more

"...Very insightful. Not exactly "light reading" but a comprehensive perspective on history and current events couldn't be, could it?" Read more

18 customers mention "Reading level"18 positive0 negative

Customers find the book essential and important to study, with one noting it's particularly valuable for students of international relations.

"This is essential reading for those that need a full picture of our unfolding reality...." Read more

"A great read. To understand the nowadays politics, this book is a good start.." Read more

"A must read for any serious student, practitioner, or teacher of cultural diversity." Read more

"...THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS was a bestselling book that was widely discussed and debated throughout America--in the popular media, in the halls of..." Read more

16 customers mention "Writing quality"15 positive1 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, with one noting it was well written in the 90's.

"Great book on foreign affairs, well written and very applicable to the current challenges the USA faces around the globe...." Read more

"Very well written, very well researched treatise. Just a bit dry...." Read more

"Well written." Read more

"Given as a gift. Great read. Interesting written early-mid 1990's and still seems relevant." Read more

13 customers mention "Interest"10 positive3 negative

Customers find the book's theories interesting, with one customer highlighting its deep explorations of post-war conflicts and another noting its insightful analysis of population and demographic changes.

"Very interesting subject matter backed up with data. Type was a little hard to read." Read more

"...While these theories are interesting and merit close reading, I think Huntington's conclusions are a bit of a stretch...." Read more

"...Still despite my criticisms it is a very intriguing theory that should be required reading for anyone interested in global conflict." Read more

"...book to get the just of what the professor wanted, but the topic is relatively dry and uninteresting...." Read more

13 customers mention "Relevance"13 positive0 negative

Customers find the book highly relevant and important, noting that it is useful for extrapolating to future events.

"A very important book and I would suggest that any student studying polical science and history be required to read it." Read more

"Excellent read. Its so relevant that it is borderline frightening." Read more

"...It may be useful to extrapolate to future events as well. Highly entertaining, and cerebral read." Read more

"Very relevant to today's strategic context for the US," Read more

10 customers mention "Encyclopedia content"8 positive2 negative

Customers find the book to be an excellent source of information, with one customer noting it is backed up with recent historical evidence.

"This book is an excellent source of information for anyone looking to get into geopolitics, international relations, or planning to travel overseas..." Read more

"Huntington presents some interesting and compelling data to back up his arguments for a "clash of civilizations" and whether you agree with his..." Read more

"Very interesting subject matter backed up with data. Type was a little hard to read." Read more

"...But it begins with fanciful self-serving maps and it continues with the most plain wishful thinking...." Read more

19 customers mention "Pacing"8 positive11 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some finding it intense and stimulating, while others describe it as ultimately unconvincing.

"...INTENSE. Profound. NOT a mindless easy read...." Read more

"Samuel Huntington has written a very provocative and engaging book that argues largely that conflicts in the post Cold War world will be based upon..." Read more

"This is a must read for all educated voters. It is a bit dry, but his explanation of why there are conflicts in the world and his predictions..." Read more

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M. Leddy
Still worth reading in 2010
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2010
Verified Purchase

As pundits reference THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS regularly (or at least frequently recycle the phrase "clash of civilizations"), I half-expected the book to be a neocon apologist's version of why the U.S. must wage war in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is not. Actually, the book provides an incredibly thoughtful and provocative examination of the world we live in today. Huntington writes: "[C]lashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war" (13). As he clearly states in the preface, it is intended as a paradigm for viewing global politics.

Huntington's thesis is based on his belief that "the most important distinctions among people are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural" (21). Thus, the most important and dangerous conflicts will be between people from different cultures (28). Huntington sees the world "divided between a Western one and non-Western many" (36). He states that "[c]ulture is the common theme in virtually every civilization," and that the most important element which defines culture is religion (42). At this point, one might assume that Huntington is setting the reader up for justification as to why the U.S. must go to war with ________ (insert Muslim country here). He is not.

Some concepts that Huntington elaborates upon are that of 'fault lines' and 'core states,' as well as 'indigenization,' which would be defined as the reassertion of indigenous cultures and beliefs. Indigenization serves to explain why many countries in the world are not on the same page as that of the U.S. And his idea of core states is especially significant. To simplify, basically each civilization has a core state. For example, in the West it is (and must remain) the U.S. In East Asia, it is China. But in the Muslim civilization, there is no core state, and this, according to Huntington, helps explain why there is so much conflict and unrest in this part of the world. Incredibly, this book very much holds up after 9/11, and I'd say that recent history could serve to validate much of Huntington's thesis thus far. This is not to say that I agree with everything he espouses. For example, I think he unfairly paints the Muslim world with a broad stroke, and I would argue that many people in the Muslim civilization are actually motivated by reasons that are political and economic (not religious), yet his argument merits serious contemplation. Huntington also focuses significantly on China/Sinic civilization, Russian/Orthodox civilization, as well as examines the Bosnian War as a case study in fault line wars.

Huntington makes two points that especially stood out to me. One is addressing the issue of weapons proliferation. Huntington writes, "The hold-down efforts of the West may slow the weapons build up of other societies, but they will not stop it" (190). He explains this in further detail, but I can't help think of the U.S.'s position on Iran and those who advocate another pre-emptive attack. Secondly, in his conclusion, Huntington encourages that civilizations focus on what they have in common in order to get along peacefully. This makes perfect sense to me, and I wish we would hear this more often. He writes: "[T]he world's major religions - Western Christianity, Orthodoxy, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism - also share key values in common. If humans are ever to develop a universal civilization, it will emerge gradually through the exploration and expansion of these commonalities" (320).

Reading this book is well worth your time. I recommend it.

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Gary Kern
A REVOLUTIONARY TREATISE, NOT HEEDED
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2007
Verified Purchase
Reading this 1996 publication after 9/11/2001, the onset of the War on Terror and the US experiment in "regime change" and "nation building," one cannot but be amazed at the accuracy of its prognostication and the degree to which its advice was not heeded. The basic thesis of the book is that it is impossible to impose Western political, religious and cultural values on non-Western countries. A most astonishing proof of this thesis is the first Gulf War of 1990, waged by the United States against Iraq. To Western eyes it was an entirely just war, backed up by a coalition of Arab states, which succeeded in stopping Saddam Hussein from invading a weaker sovereign state, Kuwait. But, as Huntington shows, it was roundly condemned by public opinion in the Middle East as an imperialist intervention in domestic affairs, a threatening show of military force and a war of the West against all Arabs and all Muslims. The good war, even altruistic war, backfired. Undertaken to protect the life and property of an Arab state, it provoked fear and hatred in the Arab world and empowered the defeated aggressor, whose prestige gained in neighboring states.

On the basis of such examples, Huntington draws the painful conclusion that we (as Westerners) cannot universalize rights and principles that we hold dear and apply them to other peoples, governments and states that do not observe them. To do so, he warns, is false, immoral and dangerous. He asserts toward the close of his book: "Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilizational world." He advances an "abstention rule": that core states of one civilization abstain from intervening in the conflicts of other civilizations. He proposes that a constant seeking for common values, practices and institutions among different peoples, states and civilizations is the key to peace and world order in the realignment of nations taking place after the end of the Cold War.

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS was a bestselling book that was widely discussed and debated throughout America--in the popular media, in the halls of academe and in the chambers of government. Henry Kissinger endorsed it. Zbigniew Brzezinski called it revolutionary. Presumably every reader of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, where Huntington's initial statement was published, studied the book. This means all the world analysts in the Department of State, the Department of Defense and the Cabinet. It is hard to imagine another publication that had a greater chance of influencing US foreign policy. And yet, as the US prepared to go to war for a second time against Iraq, then went to war and got stuck, every single argument, proof and piece of advice packed into its nearly 400 pages was forgotten or ignored. All that was left was a catch-phrase, "clash of civilizations," which was denied and almost always misused.

Contrary to one of the reviews on this page, there is nothing simplistic about this book. The concepts of "civilization," "core state" and "fault-line war" are put forward with precise definitions, reasoned exposition and pertinent historical examples buttressed by statistical data and a full scholarly apparatus. Balkan politics are discussed in exacting detail, Chinese and Central Asian politics as well. Islamic militancy is examined with unflinching objectivity. Distinctions are drawn between domestic multiculturalism and foreign universalism which are hairsplitting, but crucial. The writing abounds in classifications and qualifications; often tedious, but often capped with a memorable maxim: "The great beneficiaries of the war of civilizations are those civilizations who abstained from it."

For me, the discussions of post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe are most instructive: "People could no longer identify as Communists, Soviet citizens or Yugoslavs, and desperately needed to find new identities. They found them in the old standbys of ethnicity and religion. The repressive but peaceful order of states committed to the proposition that there is no god was replaced by the violence of people committed to different gods." The presentation of civilizational alignments in the Afghan war of 1979-1989, the Tadzhikistan war of 1992 and the Chechen wars beginning in 1994 provides the background for ongoing conflicts today. The analysis of Sino-Russian politics and prospects brings us right up to the moment.

The failure of this book to prevent the very thing it warned against is very troubling and raises questions about the real impact of public discourse today. No doubt it is too much to ask power-mongers to re-read it, but for us mere mortals it is essential. We may not be able to change the world, but we at least want to understand it.

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AlphaDelta1968
Scary. A Must read in 2013 . Please sent it to all Presidents
Reviewed in Canada on September 12, 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Scary. A Must read in 2013 . Please sent it to all Présidents of this world.

My father asked me to read this book. He had just put down his own copy and called me, saying he could'nt sleep after reading it.

Since I value my father opinion, I ordered myself a copy, took a deep breath to read what I though would be a tedious political read.

How wrong I was!! It read like a thriller. I could not put it down, and as I read more and more, I realize how important this book is. Even though it was written in the 1990's, it is even more scary to read it now, in light of the latest political crisis.

Please someone, make it a higher school mandatory read. Please give a copy to all politicians, and Wake up everybody, for the world as we know it, already does not exist anymore.

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Ricardo Aguilar
Excelente libro
Reviewed in Mexico on January 16, 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
El libro es excelente; llegó en perfectas condiciones y mucho antes de lo que se indicaba originalmente. Sin duda, Huntington fue un visionario y se adelantó a muchas cosas que fueron ocurriendo y que confirmaron sus hipótesis. Lo único malo del autor es que me parece demasiado anglosajón en su forma de plantear las cosas, y se nota una cierta actitud racista hacia los latinoamericanos. En fin, con ello confirma que la lucha de civilizaciones es más real de lo que se plantea en el papel. Es un libro obligado para quien quiera ahondar en el mundo de la geopolítica.

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Amazon カスタマー
Worthy of time and efforts!
Reviewed in Japan on August 11, 2023
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Very broad perspective is really impressive.

It is interesting how to analyze Japans strategic role and ability in Big Politics of the world from the West.

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@Etwanders
Phénoménal
Reviewed in France on January 5, 2025
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Quelle surprise de recevoir le livre second hand de l'Université d'Oxford !
Pas encore terminé la lecture, mais l'auteur faisait déjà le constat dans les années 90 de la division du monde en idéaux symboliques au détriment des Etats-nations et des populations menant à de vastes guerres à travers le monde.
Jusqu'à maintenant, aucun contenu trouvé qui puisse faire référence à un potentiel racisme ou autres. Ses détracteurs n'ont visiblement pas lu le livre ou alors se sentent visés par son analyse.

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Samved Iyer.
Incisive, but somewhat contrary to what it implies
Reviewed in India on January 6, 2021
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Creditably, Huntington does not assume a tone of finality with regard to his proposition. He notes that a clash of civilizations is highly improbable, but not impossible. To a commodious extent, cultural identities have indeed assumed significance. But, his own book muses on the possibility of a conflict within cleft states i.e. such states as harbour numerically significant communities, each claiming its origins from a different civilization, owing to which there is apt to be tension and destabilization. That, to my mind, is more probable than a clash between or amongst civilizations. Worthy of reading, nonetheless.

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