Samuel Huntington is a serious scholar with a passion for the politically incorrect. Above all, he believes in the power of culture – tricky, since anything one says about the culture of any specific ethnic group immediately sounds like prejudice. He also believes that sweeping generalizations can be made and acted upon – even more controversial in academia today.

In this book Huntington makes a global argument: “people and countries with similar cultures are coming together. People and countries with different cultures are coming apart. Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization.”

Loosely, Huntington forecasts a global realignment of the West vs. Islam vs. Asia. When the book came out, people quickly found holes. Easy to do in claims this broad. If Bosnia was a culture clash, why was the US fighting on the side of the Muslims? But then along came September 11th and every year hence Huntington has seemed more disturbingly prescient. A classic that’s worth reading even if you hate it.