"Clash of Civilizations" author Samuel Huntington dies

[TacticalPeek]

Source: Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - Political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose controversial book "The Clash of Civilizations" predicted conflict between the West and the Islamic world, has died at age 81, Harvard University said on Saturday.

Huntington, who taught for 58 years at Harvard before retiring in 2007, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, the university said on its website.

In his 1996 "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which expanded on his 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Huntington divided the world into rival civilizations based mainly on religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism and said competition and conflict among them was inevitable.

His focus on religion rather than ideology as a source of conflict in the post-Cold War world triggered broad debate about relations between the Western and Islamic worlds, especially in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE4BQ1RC20081227

[Odin2005]

1. Oh No!

I read "Clash of Civilizations" when I was in high school and thought it was an excellent book

RIP Professor Huntington :(

[Efilroft Sul]

2. One of the smartest people ever.

So many good people taken in 2008. Huntington was a huge loss for us. His insights would have served the incoming administration well.

[Captain Hilts]

6. He certainly looked at things from a different perspective. Refreshing even when you didn't agree.

RIP Professor Huntington.

[ellisonz]

3. Damn shame.

[regnaD kciN]

4. Why the effusive praise...???

Huntington's book was prime fodder for the Bushie/neocon War On Terra and the notion that we must always be at war against those nasty Ay-rabs and Muuuuuuuuuslims. It helped promote the mindset that held that a proper response to being attacked by a handful of religious fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia via Afghanistan was to overthrow a secular regime and kill tens of thousands in Iraq. Because, after all, They're All The Same and, we can't forget, it's a Clash Of Civilizations, right?

Good riddance, say I.

[Posteritatis]

5. It definitely was a nice case of self-fulfilling prophecy, wasn't it?

Huntington's largely responsible for the whole Green Scare bullshit that we were going through for years before 9/11 "vindicated" him.

Probably helped fire up some of said fundamentalists too. "They think all of Islam is one single entity and their enemy, therefore all of Western civilization is too!"

[Odin2005]

7. I highly dought Huntington had ANY desire for his writtings to be hijacked like that.

So why blame him for it?

[New Dawn]

8. Good riddance.

[David__77]

9. I don't understand how any progressive-minded person can praise him.

We need a dialogue of civilizations.