In five pages this paper disagrees with the assumptions, analysis, and conclusions of Samuel P. Huntington presented in The Clash of Civilizations. Five sources are cited in the bibliography.
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encouraging readers to conjure up huge armies divided by race, language and religion, moving forward across thousands of miles of battlefields, brandishing cross and cresent banners. The truth according
to these critics, however, is quite divergent from Huntingtons (1998) interpretation, which is significantly "uglier, more complex, and pathetic" (Kaplan, 1997, pp. 269-270). Those who find flaws in Huntingtons
(1998) stance - which asserts that "...the avoidance of major intercivilizational wars requires core states to refrain from intervening in conflicts in other civilizations" (Huntington, 1998, p. PG.) - contend
that his self-aggrandizing treatment and sweeping generalizations make for a highly ivory-towered interpretation of cultural conflict. "The Clash of Civilizations is brilliant, provocative, and utterly unconvincing. Like so
many previous efforts to devise grand theories of history and politics-from Spengler to Toynbee to Fukuyama-Huntingtons collapses under the weight of its own assumptions" (Heilbrunn, 1998, p. PG).
While popular in virtually every political circle, Huntingtons The Clash of Civilizations is not supported by everyone who reads the authors sometimes-scathing and judgmental
assertions of global cultural discord. Lebanese-born Shiite and Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami takes exception to Huntingtons (1998) broad brush approach to the overwhelming ethnic condemnation he puts forth
in his book. According to Ajami, who openly spoke of his feelings in a 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, "the world of Islam divides and subdivides. The battle
lines in the Caucasus ... are not coextensive with civilizational fault lines. The lines follow the interest of states. Where Huntington sees a civilizational duel between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the Iranian state has cast religious zeal ... to the wind ... in that battle the Iranians have tilted toward Christian Armenia" (Kaplan, 1997, pp. 269-270).