The end of the world as we know it.

While I was sliding around the mountain last week, Samuel Huntington died. Among other things, Huntington created a political theory which has yet to replaced. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations is completely worth the time to read. Terribly interesting and relevant.

U.S. NEWS DECEMBER 28, 2008, 12:25 A.M. ET
Political Scientist Huntington Dies at 81
Associated Press

BOSTON -- Samuel Huntington -- a political scientist who argued that future conflicts would have their seeds in culture and religion rather than friction between nations -- died Wednesday on Martha's Vineyard, Harvard University announced Saturday. He was 81.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, left, talked with Samuel Huntington before a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Feb. 3, 2002.

Mr. Huntington had retired from active teaching in 2007 after 58 years at Harvard. His research and teaching focused on American government, democratization, military politics, strategy, and civil-military relations.

Mr. Huntington began teaching at Harvard at age 23. For the next half century he served as a mentor to generations of students and fellow faculty members.

Mr. Huntington was best known for his views on the clash of civilizations. He argued that in a post-Cold War world, violent conflict would come not from ideological friction between nation states, but from cultural and religious differences among the world's major civilizations.

He identified those major civilizations as Western (including the U.S. and Europe), Latin American, Islamic, African, Orthodox (with Russia as a core state), and Hindu, Japanese, and "Sinic" (including China, Korea, and Vietnam).

He made the argument in a 1993 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, and then expanded the thesis into a book, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which appeared in 1996. The book has since been translated into 39 languages.

In all, Mr. Huntington wrote 17 books including "The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations," published in 1957 and inspired by President Harry Truman's firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and "Political Power: USA-USSR," a study of Cold War dynamics and how the world could be shaped by two political philosophies locked in opposition, which he co-authored in 1964 with Zbigniew Brzezinski.

His 1969 book, "Political Order in Changing Societies," analyzed political and economic development in the Third World.

"Sam was the kind of scholar that made Harvard a great university," Mr. Huntington's friend of nearly six decades, economist Henry Rosovsky, said in a statement released by the university.

Mr. Huntington was born on April 18, 1927, in New York City, the son of Richard Huntington, an editor and publisher, and Dorothy Phillips, a writer. He received his B.A. from Yale in 1946, served in the U.S. Army, earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1948, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1951, where he had taught nearly without a break since 1950.

Mr. Huntington is survived by his wife of 51 years, Nancy Huntington and sons Nicholas Huntington and Timothy Huntington.

Copyright © 2008 Associated Press