As what Eliot Janet says, “History, we know, is apt to repeat itself”. The Clash of Civilization and Remaking of World Order is a book wherein author, Samuel Huntington thoroughly analyses and affirms the reanimation of politics, culture, economics and history on the aftermath of the Cold War. Huntington clearly states that the source of conflict and divisions among people are their different views on political, economic or ideologies, such as the struggle between communism and democracy. His main argument in this book was that the difference between states is no longer political, ideological or economic but cultural. His book consists of five parts: Part one; he demonstrates how global politics became multipolar and multi – civilizational. He also created his version of a civilization paradigm. Like what he said, “We need a map that portrays reality and simplifies reality in a way that best deserves our purposes.” He then divided the world in eight major civilizations. First is the Sinic, which is a Chinese culture in Southeast Asia; Japanese, they believed that they were different from the rest of the world; the Hindus, the Islamic, Orthodox, Western, Latin America and Africa. Huntington claims that the Africans …show more content…
Also in this part Huntington recognizes the importance of religion in global politics. According to Merriam – Webster Dictionary, Religion is an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a God or a group of Gods. Huntington said that people replaced politics with religion that resulted to people increasing their communication among societies. In this part, he also said that Asian countries could modernize themselves without adopting the culture of the West. He clearly mentioned Japan, China and the four tigers which are Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and
In his short article “World History as a Way of Thinking” Eric Lane Martin, “…argue[s] that the most important things the field of world history has to offer the researcher, teacher, student, and general public are the conceptual tools required for understanding complex global processes and problems.” Anyone who follows the evening news or shops at Wal-mart, has encountered the processes and problems Martin speaks of. Our modern society puts pressure on a variety of citizens to grapple with and attempt to understand issues on a scale that moves beyond the local and national. History has long been a tool utilized by scholars, politicians and citizens to help them put current day happenings into context. That context has allowed for a deeper understanding of the present day. In an era when the issues cross national and regional boundaries the need for a different scale of history has become apparent. World history has emerged as a relatively new discipline within academia that is attempting to provide the context for large-scale processes and problems. As the field has grown a variety of authors, some historians, some from other fields, have attempted to write a history of the world. With such a daunting task how can we define success? How can we analyze the history that provides a true global perspective on processes and problems we face? By taking Martin’s two key characteristics of world history, one, it is defined by the kinds of questions it asks and two, it is defined by the problem-solving techniques it uses, we can analyze texts purporting to be world history and access their utility in providing context for the global processes and problems we face today.
Tignor, R., Adelman, J., Brown, P., Elman, B. A., Liu, X., Pittman, H., & Shaw, B. D. (2011). Worlds together, worlds apart A history of the world: V. 1 (3rd ed., Vol. 1). New York: WW Norton &.
The time period between 1945 and 1991 is considered to be the era of the Cold War. The Cold War, known as the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, each known during this time as the “super powers”. This conflict consisted of the differing attitudes on the ideological, political, and military interests of these two states and their allies, exte nded around the globe. A common political debate covers the issue of who, if anyone won the Cold War. Many believe the United States won the Cold War since (it) had resulted in the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. While others are to believe the United States had not won it as much as the Soviet Union had lost it since they feel Reagan did not end the Cold War, but that he prolonged it (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This has lead me to believe that there is no winner, only losers of the cold war. The cold war for the Soviet Union was to ensure security, block out capitalism, gain power, and improve their economy. While, on the other hand the United States just wanted to stop the spread of communism, which they felt, would spread rapidly throughout the world if they did not put an end to it soon. Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid WWIII in the process of trying to achieve their goals.
The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington interprets contemporary and projected conflicts, implying that the clash of civilizations will create the sustenance for all conflict to follow. He advocates that prior warfare and conflict advance from the work of monarchies, to the stuff of nation states, to the result of ideological differences. In conclusion, Huntington predicts that civilization divisions and misunderstandings will encourage all debates to come.
Flory, Harriette, and Samuel Jenike. A World History: The Modern World. Volume 2. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 42.
Samuel Huntington was one of the America’s greatest political scientist, back in 1993 Huntington published an essay, which later became a book, called The Clash of Civilizations, in his analysist he argued that the future conflict will be marked by civilizations conflict. He believes that in this new world the sources of conflict will not be primarily ideological nor economical, but rather the great division of humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. In short, Huntington’s predicts that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics in the future (Huntington, 1993).
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
I share the view of Edward Said who responded to Huntington’s thesis in his 2001 article, “ The Clash of Ignorance”. He argued that Huntington’s categorization of the world’s fixed “civilizations” omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. Said (2004) also argues that the clash of civilizations thesis is an example of “ the purest individious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science
Kegley, Charles W., and Eugene R. Wittkopf. World Politics Trend and Transformation. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2006.
With the shock of two destructive world wars and then the creation of the United Nations, whose aim is to preserve peace, it is unconceivable for these two nations to fight directly in order to promote their own ideology. But the US and the USSR end up to be in competition in numerous ways, particularly in technological and industrial fields. In the same time they start to spread their influence over their former allies. This phenomenon have led to the creation of a bipolar world, divided in two powerful blocs surrounded by buffer zones, and to the beginning of what we call the Cold War because of the absence of direct conflicts between the two nations.
In “Democracy’s Third Wave”, Samuel P. Huntington examines the creation of democracies during the third wave and questions whether they were part of a continuing “global democratic revolution” or simply a limited expansion only meant for countries that had already experienced democracy (Huntington, 1991). He does this through research based empirical study by tracing the series of events leading to democratization. There are both quantitative (in regards to economic growth and the amount/percentage of countries that democratized during all three waves) and qualitative (through historical evidence in regards to snowballing) research methods. Huntington’s examination is based on having democratization as his dependent variable and his five factors,
In 1992 within a lecture Samuel P. Huntington proposed a theory that suggests that people's cultural and religious identities will undoubtedly be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world, this theory is known as the Clash of Civilizations. Therefore this essay provides a criticism of this theory, whether I agree or disagree with it and also the aspects I like or dislike about the theory as a whole.
If you recall my main point in “The Clash of Civilizations?”, I argued that the conflicts of the future will dominantly be due to cultural differences (Huntington, 1993). However, Said argues that instead of cultural differences, conflicts will stem from the ignorance that different cultures have when it comes to the other (Said, 2001). I defend my argument by pointing out that although Said believes the conflicts will stem from ignorance, the conflicts are still between civilizations. For Said’s argument to make sense, he has to admit that there are and always will be differences between these cultures that are of a sufficient scale, in order for one side to be ignorant about the beliefs and values of the other. The result of either civilization not understanding or accepting the practices of the other side’s culture is their eventual conflict (Huntington, 1993). Therefore, the basis of Said’s point supports my hypothesis that future conflicts will firstly, be between civilizations, and secondly, be due to their differences in culture.
There are many different ways that this article can be perceived. In my opinion, the argument is very convincing that Western culture is not the culture of the world. There are many cultures around the world that are highly functioning with Western influence and the author does an excellent job of incorporating examples of these societies into his argument. Countries such as Japan are experiencing what Huntington describes as cultural
Kegley, Charles W., and Eugene R. Wittkopf. World Politics Trend and Transformation. New York: St. Martin's, 1981. Print.