Huntington was born on April 18, 1927 in New York City. He was a political scientist and international relations professor at Harvard University in America and author of several books including The Clash of Civilizations which got world-wide fame.
It is important to know the reasons behind the publication of this book and how does it explain the clashes, wars, and disharmony among civilizations since the post-cold war? Primarily, it deals with the global politics, civilizational, and cultural order of the world explicitly with special focus the cold war, which had been fought between the two powerful blocs, “western bloc” Europe and its allies, and “eastern bloc” Russia and its allies over the determined ideas of capitalism and communism. Undoubtedly, this book had been published to support the theory of liberalism, which has been explained by Frances Fokoyama in his book ” The End Of History And Mankind”, where he addresses that it would be the end of clashes and conflicts after the Cold War. He further says that there would only be a liberal and self-determined world, which would be based on liberal democracy and no violations of human rights.
Contradictorily, Huntington focuses on a realistic approach. He explains in his book that war and clashes between civilizations ,cultures, and religions will always remain a part of human life. Moreover, he mainly divides the civilizations into eight parts considered: western,canfucious, Latin America, Islamic, orthodox, Hinduism, Buddhism, and African civilization. Furthermore, he emphasized that there would only be clashes among civilizations and cultures. rather than between ideas, as occurred in the Cold War last time. He says that culture is either the divisive or unifying force to integrate or disintegrate civilizations. According to him, everyone would be identifying with their culture and ancestral diaspora. Why are we following others? Do we not have our own normative rules and cultural traits where we come from?
More importantly, conflicts would arise due to the reconfiguration of their own cultural and civilizational traits. He blames the domination of the west which is highly dependent upon violence, despite rational ideas and has critically defined the destructive weapons proliferation of the Europeans, specifically their intervention in the Gulf wars. He further explains the proliferation agreement between the east and its allies, including Russia , China, Iran, Pakistan, and the rest of the central Asian states.
Nonthless, It has been predicted that the rest of civilizations, particularly Chinese and Islamic civilizations, will eventually dethrone the West in the coming centuries, which could be the first and foremost challenge to westernization. As a result, emigration, overpopulated culture of Islam and eastern civilizations, the sporadic emergence of Islamic & Asian Unions, (Islamic organizations commission) IOC, and (Shanghai cooperation organizations) SCO, are very challenging sources to completely decline the hegemonic power of the West.
Finally and most important, to summarize the entire book, the world political and economic order would simultaneously reemerge into a multi-cultural or multinational politics. Conflict, clashes, disintegration, civil, ethnic, and tribal war may also occur among the various civilizations in order to reconfigure their ancestral background and self-identity. Self-identity, civilizational mechanisms, religious norms, and cultural traits are going to be rebuilt or reconfigured. Finally, he explains that, in fact, Western, Hinduism, and Islamic civilizations are the biggest enemies of each other, but Chinese and Islamic civilizations are less likely to clash with one another in the upcoming centuries of the world. But they may both get together and defeat the westernized order of the world.
