“Sam Huntington is that rarity among academic international relations specialists, a man who takes the power of culture seriously. Surveying the post-Cold War landscape, Huntington saw that the world of the 21st century would be shaped by the dynamism and interaction of different forms of civilization or culture: Western, Islamic, Chinese, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist, Latin American, African, Japanese. Among other things, Huntington-s distinctive analysis challenged those secularization theorists who had argued for decades that, as the world became more -modern,- religious conviction would wither as a force in human affairs. Religious conviction, Huntington insisted, would play a large, perhaps even determinative, role in shaping post-Cold War world politics.”