On November 03, 1997, to coincide with the Dutch translation of his international bestseller The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, political scientist Samuel Huntington lectured at the John Adams Institute. Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilizations as a result of an article published in Foreign Affairs in 1993, in which he argues that all future conflicts will occur at the boundaries between different cultures and civilizations. His theory evoked so much response that he decided to work out his arguments and to publish them in book form. In the book, huntington takes an even more drastic stand: the image of a universally Western oriented world in development is misplaced, arrogant, untrue and dangerous. Huntington contends that some great cultures, such as the Islamic and the Confucian, will continue to exist in rivalry with Western cultures. This clashes with the Western drive to spread its own culture, and will lead to confrontations of cultural origin. Samuel Huntington was Professor of International Politics at Harvard University, where he also headed the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies.

Samuel Huntington died in 2008, at the age of 81.

Moderator: Frans Alting van Geusen and Ruud Lubbers

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