The Clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order

Book Review

Reviewer: Amaan Rasheed
Book Name: The Clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order
Author: Samuel P. Huntignton
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 320
Price: n/a

Written by one of the west’s most prominent political scientist, this book provides a paradigm for understanding the post-cold war World. Extending from his original article “the clash of civilizations” which appeared in foreign affairs in 1993 and generated the world wide (both positive and negative) response this book is the refinement and elaborations of the same.

Huntington argues that like the cold war-paradigm-of world-affairs help describe the world at the macro level and aided our understanding of the global phenomena, A simplified model is required to understand the post-cold-war world. and suggest a framework based on multiple cultures and civilizations, “Viewing the world in terms of seven or eight civilizations” he argues guarantees both parsimony and realism(conditions necessary for defining a good political-model).Huntington thus identifies seven most important civilizations of the 21st century which are Sinic, western, Japanese, Hindu Islamic, Latin American and possibly African. The book however revolves around the Sinic, Islamic and western trio leaving the other “swing civilizations”.

The Muslim militancy ,the Chinese assertiveness , western universalism and the mutual history of conflict between these civilizations (particularly between the west and the Islam) could conflagrate what the author terms “a clash of civilizations”.

The author forcefully arguers the failure of the western concept of single civilization and universal society, And instead sees the world consisting of fundamentally different(in value, religion, social structure and culture) civilizations. Modernity, migration and close contacts between civilizations emphasized the lack of identity and core differences between them. With the resurgence of religion in 1970s and the economic development of south Asian countries overwhelmed them with the sense of “different identity” and marked the dwindling of the universalism and single civilization headed by the west.

The strategic ties forced by the cold-war holds no appeals in the post-cold-war, alignments are increasingly configured based on shared culture. The author sites numerous example of how alignments based on shared civilizations are more prolific and enduring(NATO), and those based on cross-civilizations are less so(ASEAN). The rejection of turkeys membership in the European union and the Australia in the Asian one points to this fact.

Major World Civilizations according to Samual P. Huntington

The Muslim militancy ,the Chinese assertiveness , western universalism and the mutual history of conflict between these civilizations (particularly between the west and the Islam) could conflagrate what the author terms “a clash of civilizations”. Which may give way to a series of fault-line wars “which are vicious and bloody since fundamental issues are at stake”, the Afghanistan, gulf and the Yugoslavia were fault-line wars largely seen and fought on civilizational lines.

I found the very description of civilization very vague which in western context, consists of values, ideas and religion, in Islam consists of only religion and china of values alone, further the intra-civilization/sub-civilizational issues are largely neglected and the existence of multicultural societies repudiates the very essence of the book.

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