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At head of title: The University of Wisconsin, Department of Political Science. ; Mode of access: Internet.

In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the easing of East- West tensions, Samuel Huntington presented his theory of a "clash of civilizations." He announced that conflicts between ideologies had come to an end and were to be replaced by a new kind of confrontation, this time between cultures and religions.
This essay attempts to show how misled Huntington's thesis can be by referring to forms of humanism from Africa as well as to some ideas developed in Arabian-Islamic philosophy. In the early 1930s, African intellectuals such as Léopold Sédar Senghor or Aimé Césaire already tried to oppose their own conception of humanism to Western individualistic humanism. The distinction can be found in the concept of Ubuntu, or "African humanism," which incorporates notions of respect for the other, collective responsibility and solidarity. The Arab-Islamic world has also had similar concerns from an early stage. Its heritage from classical Greek philosophy, which placed human being at the centre of its thinking and ethical acting, came indeed under the significant influence of Islamic values, such as equality, fraternity and the community.
Thus the essay offers an alternative to Huntington's post-modern model of "clash of civilizations" beyond the frontiers set by Western humanism and that is more relevant to our current globalising world – a new trans- and intercultural humanism that favours the ways human beings can relate to each other as persons regardless of race, culture and religion. Human dignity and respect for the "other," including the environment, are therefore central to this new humanism.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Note on Transliteration and Dating -- Part One The Formative Period, 610-950 -- Part Two A Civilization Under Siege, 950-1260 -- Part Three Mongol Hegemony, 1260-1405 -- Glossary -- Index -- Plates -- 1. Origins -- 2. Arab Imperialism -- 3. The Development of Sectarianism -- 4. The Center Cannot Hold: Three Caliphates -- 5. Synthesis and Creativity -- 6. Filling the Vacuum of Power, 950-1100 -- 7. Barbarians at the Gates, 1100-1260 -- 8. The Consolidation of Traditions -- 9. The Muslim Commonwealth

Pt. 1. The price of food. The three gorges dam -- chapter 1. Fairs: the food trade -- chapter 2. Larders: what do you do with ten thousand tons of grain? -- chapter 3. Farms: growing food for profit and environmental rapine -- Pt. 2. The price rises. An experiment in survival -- chapter 4. Water: irrigation's questionable cure -- chapter 5. Dirt: the chemistry of life -- chapter 6. Ice: preserve us -- Pt. 3. Empty pockets. Storm clouds -- chapter 7. Blood: the conquest of food -- chapter 8. Money: tea and famine -- chapter 9. Time: fair, organic, and slow -- Conclusion: the new gluttony and tomorrow's menu

S. Huntingtons Verständnis von Kultur/Zivilisation ist in erster Linie ein empirisches. Denn es geht Huntington um eine formanalytische Kategorie, die offen genug sein muss, um weltweit differente Prozesse erfassen zu können, die aber eben trotz dieser regionalspezifischen Besonderheiten zugleich auf ein allgemeines Referenzsystem verweist. Der Kultur- bzw. Zivilisationsbegriff bietet sich dabei deshalb an, weil es sich bei beiden Begriffen letztlich um Containerbegriffe handelt, die in den meisten sprachlichen Kontexten existieren, die über jeweils spezifische semantische Subdimensionen verfügen und die überdies aber eben auch auf ein generell in der modernen Gesellschaftsformation zu lokalisierendes Referenz- und Ordnungssystem verweisen: die, mindestens formale, Trennung von politischer Ordnung und politischer Kultur. Insofern orientiert sich der von Huntington verwendete empirische Kultur-/ Zivilisationsbegriff an der Abgrenzung gegenüber der institutionalisierten Dimension des Politischen, auch wenn zugleich Institutionen - in ihrer spezifischen Legitimation - Ausdruck von (politischer) Kultur sein können. (ICB2)