Clash Of Civilizations

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He identifies eight clearly distinct civilizations: Western (the United States and western Europe), Islamic, Sinic (primarily China), Orthodox (primarily Russia), Japanese, Hindu, Latin American, and African. A pervasive presumption in the Western world is that with the fall of communism, the West has “won” and that the rest of the world will now embrace democracy and Western culture. Huntington disagrees with this presumption. In his book, Huntington shows us how civilizations and cultural identities are shaping the post-Cold War world.
In the first part of the book, Huntington describes how the world has gone from being bipolar during the Cold War, to being multipolar in the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War the world was basically divided along the lines of the “democracy vs. communism” conflict. Now that the Cold War is over, lines are being drawn along various ethnic and religious lines. Huntington uses many diverse examples such as the fighting between tribes and ...

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to Huntington, this is now not always the case. His examples include the Japanese and Islamic cultures. In Japan there has been a return to traditional Asian culture due to the prevailing belief that their economic prosperity is directly linked to their traditional culture and that the problems of the U.S. are linked to our Western culture. Islamic leaders have expressed similar attitudes as well, and Huntington goes into great detail discussing this “Islamic Resurgence”. Muslims are putting more emphasis on their traditional Islamic cultural mores and are going to great lengths to keep out Western influence while still modernizing and keeping up with technology.
Part III of ...

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