The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Samuel P. Huntington, one of the world’s most influential thinkers, argues in this seminal book that conflicts between different cultural ‘civilizations’ are the greatest threat to world peace. He suggests that the world is comprised of not two opposite but eight diverse groups, based on religion, and how international cooperation between them is the best safeguard against war. Global events in the twenty-first century have proved his foresight and sagacity. Huntington’s provocative thesis that a struggle for supremacy among dominant cultures—like the Japanese, Chinese, Hindu and Islamic—is inevitable is turning into reality. In the end, people’s decision to coexist or to make war in a complex, multipolar, multi-civilizational world will determine the course of humanity.