A Summary Of The Clash Of Civilizations

Since the inception of human civilization there have been countless cultures and societies which have helped shape the current world today as we know it. The modern human race dates back more than 200,000 years and in that time frame many cultures have risen to great virtue and success only to deteriorate or cease to exist altogether. First before examining one of these cultures we must know what culture truly means. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Culture Center defines culture as a “dynamic social system,” containing the beliefs, behaviors, values and norms of a “specific organization, group, society or other collectivity” learned, shared, internalized, and changeable by all members of the society (Watson, 2010). In

In Fukuyama 's “The End of History?” published in 1989, he posits that with the end of the Cold War, humanity is reaching a point where Western liberal democracy and economic structure is the highest form of ideological development. Other ideologies (communism, fascism, etc.) are vestigial forms of thinking destined to fail and disappear in an inevitable progression towards a liberal system. In “The Clash of Civilizations?” published in 1993, Huntington writes that the world is divided into civilizations, based on culture (not ideology or economic factors), and that the conflicts of the future (and some in the present) will be based on divisions along those lines. These include, according to Huntington, “Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African...” (Huntington 1993, 25).

The early civilizations play a key role in society today. These civilizations had their own traditions and beliefs which made them all unique. The Greek, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian civilizations all had contrasting beliefs, religions, customs, traditions, and political views which made them all individually distinct. Through studying the three ancient civilizations, we are able to analyze the differences of these civilizations.

Reacting to the theory of Fukuyama, Samuel P. Huntington resumed the expression "Clash of civilizations" in 1993 and speculates that it is mainly cultural and religious identities

Conflict helped these civilizations understand there was much more than finding a place to live and food

Samuel Huntington’s controversial article “The Clash of Civilizations?” was first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and was subsequently turned into a book in 1996 titled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. As this paper will show Huntington’s work can be seen as a product of the post-Cold War context it was written in. Huntington’s article takes a new perspective on the new world order and outlines a different way a thinking about how future world conflicts will unfold. Since the initial journal article was published in 1993 there has been a great deal of response from academics and also from Huntington himself. A majority of the responses come in the form of critiques, with the authors offering their own insight into how the post-Cold War World will operate. Although the validity of Huntington’s arguments have been questioned, it did create a great deal of controversy in the academic world. As Huntington explained in the preface of his 1996 book, the original article published in Foreign Affairs created more discussion in three years than any other article published in the journal since the 1940s.

So what exactly is the clash of civilizations? This was briefly addressed in Samuel Huntington’s paper “The clash of civilizations?”. In order to explain the term, let’s first look into what civilization is. Person does not simply get to choose the civilization he/she simply belongs to. Communists can become democrats and vice versa, but Russians can never become Americans or Arabs cannot become European. In the conflict between civilizations the question is “What are you?”, it is something given and cannot be changed. Conflicts between countries are inevitable and with the way things work it is just a matter of time, before one country would not be comfortable with what other country is doing. In that case, cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones [1]. The clash of civilizations often occurs on two levels. Micro-level is when small

A civilization refers to “a particular and distinctive type of human society” (Strayer, pg. 90). Civilizations aren’t always different from one another nor are they the exact same. Each civilization has some form of a unique characteristic that differentiates itself from the rest. For example, the Ancient Egyptians and the Hindus from Ancient India. They both have a permanent arrangement of societal roles, yet they aren’t constructed or operated in the same manner. These two locations are the main topics of this discussion/comparison.

Stearns, Peter N. et al. World Civilizations: The Global Experience, AP Edition. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc., Longman, 2003.

The first civilizations, the foundations for future empires, were all founded and created between 3500 B.C.E. and 500 B.C.E. by groups of nomadic peoples who decided to settle in an area for certain group specific reasons. Some of the main states of the first civilization were Mesopotamia, Norte Chico, Egypt, Indus Valley, China, and Olmec. The second wave civilizations, built between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E., included the Persians, the Greeks, Romans, Chinese (Qin and Han), and India (Mauryan and Gupta). The first wave civilizations were sparked by the agricultural movement that led to the settlement of large groups of people in areas that became the cities and states that formed these first civilizations. The rise of civilization led to

Throughout the history of Earth, there have been many fascinating developments, the most prominent being the first civilizations, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. They had many similarities, such as characteristics of early civilizations and social structures, but they also had their differences. The most embossed differences included the divergent geography, prior belief, trade, relations with other civilizations, and politics.

In Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The West: Unique, Not Universal,” he addresses his audience with a very controversial question: Is Western Culture universal or unique? Huntington elaborately opens up this question with research and examples to explain and persuade readers that the West will never be a universal culture for all, but rather a unique culture that will be accepted by those who appreciate it. For decades now, historians and scholars have debated with one another to determine who is right and wrong. However, from a handful of articles from different scholars, Samuel Huntington’s statement that the West is unique rather than universal is supported and even further elaborated on by these particular sources. A common understanding between all the sources, that must be noted, is that a civilization’s culture is not comprised of material goods but rather their culmination of their religion(s), values, language(s) and traditions. While although there are scholars out their that negate the West is unique, a large amount of scholars still argue and strengthen Huntington’s argument that the West has unique and exclusive characteristics that make them distinctive and rare.

Most people believe that all ancient civilizations were the same: they all lived with a steadfast loyalty to their one and only king that ruled all of the lands, civilizations only achievements were monumental buildings, and they vacuously attacked neighboring societies to gain more land for millennia. While some of this knowledge is true to an extent, civilizations accomplished an abundance more than some realize. Some fail to register that early civilizations are unique from each other. Egypt and Mesopotamia were two distinct civilizations. Despite similarities such as both being river civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia contrasted with each other in the areas of, type of ruling, religion, and

Civilization to me is what makes up our lives. As humans we are part of different civilizations, but these civilizations are made up of specific cultures and societies. The actual book definition of a civilization would be, “networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures and are defined by the economic, military, diplomatic, social and cultural interactions among them.” Over the course of the past couple weeks, I have had the chance to listen in on a podcast actually provided by Stanford University. This podcast is being made while a professor is teaching a class covering the geography of world cultures. I believe that geography has a lot to do with civilization, not only because location in this world plays a role in our lives,

Arnold Pacey published Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand Year History in the year 1991. Arnold Pacey was an associate lecturer at The Open University in Britain as well as an author to three additional books: Meaning in Technology, The Maze of Ingenuity, The Culture of Technology. He published all four of his books within a ten-year span. Arnold Pacey was trained as an engineer but is well known as a historian of technology because of the conclusions he drew of society and technology and their relationship. Society is defined as the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. Technology is defined as the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Technology influences every aspect of our lives today, but we often forget that it profoundly affected the lives of past generations dating back to the beginning of civilization. Perhaps not to today’s extent, but the impact was still dramatic. New inventions or innovations produced more food, created new processes and tools, made life easier and made war more devastating. This course traces the evolution of technology and its impact on civilization from the creation of elementary tools up to today’s latest devices and even looks into future technologies.