A Summary Of The Clash Of Civilizations

I chose the book and film, The War of the Worlds. There are many similarities and differences between these two works. A large difference between the book and movie is that the book takes place in England, while the movie takes place in the United States. The time periods are also much different, the book takes place in the late 20th century while the movie takes place in early 21st century. Another notable distinction is the change of the protagonist from a married, middle-class man without kids to a divorced working-class father of two children. The social setting plays a significant role in the plot. The main character's wife left him for a more wealthy and prosperous man. Her parents in Boston never liked him because he wasn't very successful

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

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.

Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America in 1835 and examined the democratic revolution; he references to American Exceptionalism and the five characteristics that make America “Exceptional”. Similarly, the 1950s in America was recognized for its highs and lows. Even with the economy was booming, it was known as an era of great conflict (History.com Staff). In the 1950s, Tocqueville’s five characteristics of American Exceptionalism are invalidated; liberty was not attainable due to the Cold War policies like McCarthyism, racism, such as the massive resistance of integration, disproved egalitarianism, conformity, in the suburbs and women’s lives, throughout this decade refuted individualism, populism was belittled with the

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.

Huntington explains that a lot of the founding principles of the United States, such as freedom from oppression, and the formulation of the government were based on the majority cultures, which were white Europeans. Following the creation of the country, millions of people have flocked from the four corners of the globe in order to live in a nation of freedom and understanding (Huntington 1). It is thus the white originator culture which has allowed the United States to become a melting pot. However, Huntington proclaims that this unique identity is being threatened by the large amounts of Hispanic people who are becoming a part of the United States. Without assimilation into the larger culture, the ever-increasing number of Hispanics will likely become so numerous as to divide

Diversity, justice, and sustainability are all intrinsically connected within our lives. In a sort of linear manner, these values all depend on one another to come to fruition. In the journal Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Derrick Jensen sums up the concept of sustainability and justice quite nicely in relation to revolutionizing civilization. He states that “we cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls” (Jensen 190). This can be interpreted to mean that without accepting diversity in a justified and conscientious manner, true sustainability in all aspects of life can never be reached. Within the confines of this given definition, there are many variables: diversity, justice, and sustainability

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.

The question has been posed whether early Western Civilization was molded by conflict between civilizations or by consensus between divergent civilizations. Although it can be argued that both conflict and consensus have affected the development of Western Civilization, one of these has had more of an influence than the other. As early as Ca 3000, at the dawn of civilization, there has been conflict. When the city-states of Sumer were established, warfare and competition broke out due to disagreements on land and water rights. This tradition of conflict has continued throughout history all the way up to modern times. Based on the outcomes of the many conflicts throughout history, it appears that civilization has been molded more by these conflicts than consensus between divergent civilizations. Looking at political, cultural, and religious aspects of the history of Western Civilization, one can see the influence that conflict had on shaping said civilization.

Civilization: The West and the Rest, presented by Niall Ferguson, is a documentary in which Ferguson reveals what he calls the six killer applications which has helped Western civilization dominate over everyone else. These six applications are competition, science, property, medicine, consumerism, and work. The application and episode that will be analyzed for this paper is science and the reasons for which Ferguson believes that science helped the West become to be number one. 1,000 years ago it was the East, who was paving the way scientifically due to Muslim mathematicians inventing algebra, their impressive libraries, and Arab science which was improving navigation and weaponry. With the East taking huge strides in science, Niall Ferguson

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

Early civilization consisted of core values that defined the communities that resided within it. These communities were driven by numerous factors in which would decide the overall outcome of the civilization. Geography, social and economic values, and they’re culture all played an important role in the makeup of these civilizations.

Questions have circulated for centuries concerning foreigners and their role in society. Who are the foreigners? What differentiates them from us? Should they be treated as enemies or allies? And maybe the most important question of all, how did this categorization of foreigners begin? In his work Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, Mu-chou Poo attempts to answer many of the questions that have remained unanswered about foreigners by comparing how they were viewed and treated in three of the world’s greatest ancient civilizations. He sets out to define foreign and familiar, gain insight into how these great societies used their knowledge and opinion of foreigners to assimilate or ostracize them, and discover how this information can be used to correct modern views of foreignness. But before evaluating the content of the work, there is merit in evaluating the author, his style, and the extent of his knowledge on the subject in question.

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

Samuel Huntington, the author of the clash of the civilisations believes that the World will eventually divide in accordance with cultural lines, and not political lines. According to Huntington, “the thriving East Asian and Muslim societies will soon challenge Western dominance, and the United States being the World leader will need to reevaluate its policies on foreign invention and domestic immigration to remain a major player.” During the Cold War, the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Huntington views these ties as insignificant now and states that the remaking of the World order will be based upon cultural similarity. The different thriving civilisations according to him today are the Western civilisation comprising of North America and Western Europe, the Muslim civilisation, the Orthodox Civilisation led by Russia, the Chinese civilisation, the Hindu civilisation, the Japanese civilisation, the Latin American civilisation and the African civilisation. Huntington’s proposition of the division of the World according to cultural lines has been backed by the use of various examples by him; examples of events that have taken place in the past.