Clash of Civilizations

This is my listening material for my trip to and from home (and then some) this weekend. Read a quote from it here:

“It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the US Department of Defence. It is the West, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world. These are the basic ingredients that fuel conflict between Islam and the West”.

The Amazon reviews are just as intriguing:

This is the eminent Professor Huntinton’s magnum opus, and it deserves to be read. No one can profess an understanding of modern global politics without studying this masterful work which was written in 1996. It remains a treasury of prophetic insights for our present day.

Of particular interest are the following: Chapter II, Part 5, “The Islamic Resurgence, Chapter IV Part 9, “Islam and the West” and Part 10 “Islam’s Bloody Borders.”

Huntington’s immense learning does not leave him optimistic. On the final page he writes: “On a worldwide basis Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism, generating the image of an unprecedented phenomenon, a global Dark Ages, possibly descending on humanity.”

Keep in mind that this book was published in 1998 (and supposedly written in 1996)–years before 9-11!

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