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The New Clash of Civilizations: How the Contest Between America, China, India and Islam will Shape Our Century
About the Author
A pioneering editor and publisher, Minhaz Merchant began his career as a reporter with The Times of India and later joined India Today as Mumbai bureau chief. He has been a columnist for The Times of India, The Economic Times, Sunday Times, The Asian Age and The Telegraph and written for international newspapers, including The Times, London.
Merchant founded Sterling Newspapers Pvt. Ltd to become, at twenty-five, the youngest chairman and editor-in-chief of an independent mainstream publishing group in India. Within a decade, he built Sterling into one of India s fastest-growing media houses with pioneering magazines such as Gentleman, TV and Video World, Technocrat, Business Computer, Mega City and GFQ. He was among the first Indian publishers to establish a tie-up with an international media conglomerate the Holland-based VNU, now renamed The Nielsen Group.
He is chairman and editor-in-chief of Merchant Media Ltd, a publishing firm, and heads the company s research unit, Global Intelligence Review.
A compelling amalgam of new writing and published essays by Minhaz Merchant, The New Clash of Civilizations offers deep and stimulating insights into how the contest between four major civilizational forces the United States, China, India and Islam will shape our century. The historic shift in the economic and geopolitical balance of power from the West to the East, Merchant writes, will determine the ideas and principles that govern this unfolding century.
Divided into six distinct sections History, Nation, World, Leaders, Science & Society, and Vintage the book provides an original perspective on a dynamic nation coming to terms with itself and the world. In politics and science, history and economics, India s place in an increasingly competitive global order and its interaction with the other three major civilizational strands forms a cornerstone of the book s narrative.
Broad in sweep and range, The New Clash of Civilizations is a lucid and brilliant account of the ebb and flow of power in the twenty-first century.
A pioneering editor and publisher, Minhaz Merchant began his career as a reporter with The Times of India and later joined India Today as Mumbai bureau chief. He has been a columnist for The Times of India, The Economic Times, Sunday Times, The Asian Age and The Telegraph and written for international newspapers, including The Times, London.
Merchant founded Sterling Newspapers Pvt. Ltd to become, at twenty-five, the youngest chairman and editor-in-chief of an independent mainstream publishing group in India. Within a decade, he built Sterling into one of India s fastest-growing media houses with pioneering magazines such as Gentleman, TV and Video World, Technocrat, Business Computer, Mega City and GFQ. He was among the first Indian publishers to establish a tie-up with an international media conglomerate the Holland-based VNU, now renamed The Nielsen Group.
He is chairman and editor-in-chief of Merchant Media Ltd, a publishing firm, and heads the company s research unit, Global Intelligence Review.
A compelling amalgam of new writing and published essays by Minhaz Merchant, The New Clash of Civilizations offers deep and stimulating insights into how the contest between four major civilizational forces the United States, China, India and Islam will shape our century. The historic shift in the economic and geopolitical balance of power from the West to the East, Merchant writes, will determine the ideas and principles that govern this unfolding century.
Divided into six distinct sections History, Nation, World, Leaders, Science & Society, and Vintage the book provides an original perspective on a dynamic nation coming to terms with itself and the world. In politics and science, history and economics, India s place in an increasingly competitive global order and its interaction with the other three major civilizational strands forms a cornerstone of the book s narrative.
Broad in sweep and range, The New Clash of Civilizations is a lucid and brilliant account of the ebb and flow of power in the twenty-first century.
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 6, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 19, 2015
Does this book deserve just a single star?
Probably not. The journalistic essays by one of India's long-serving top journalists, biographer (of Rajiv Gandhi, Birla) and editor can't be that bad, can those?
But still, I put it in the " didn't like it" category, cause I was pissed.
No, I was not pissed with the author's opinions, which I might not agree to, one time or other.
No, I was not annoyed with lack of convincing evidence backed arguments in these essays.
No, I was not bothered when the author selected his vintage essays with "I told you so" remarks.
No, I was not upset that it didn't add much to enrich my understanding of my country, our world.
What irked me the most was there was absolutely nothing (apart from probably two pages in the introduction) which linked the content of the book to the title: "How the Contest Between America, China, India and Islam will Shape Our Century". When you pick a title like "The New Clash of Civilizations" as if you are providing a sequel to Huntington's hugely controversial but famous work, you just can't go on and on the issues in Governance in India in past few years. There is not a single essay where it touches on, even remotely, how US, China or Islaam is remaking the world order.
This book could have been easily titled as "What is wrong with Congress Government in last 10 years?" The book has everything from the authors chance encounters with Dhirubhai Ambani in the lifts to India's pseudo-secularism, from Sachin Tendulkar's batting to Carl Sagan's Cosmos, except how civilizations are clashing in the modern time.
I felt like as if someone has sold me Royal Challenger's whiskey putting it in a Glenfiddich bottle. *Sigh*
Probably not. The journalistic essays by one of India's long-serving top journalists, biographer (of Rajiv Gandhi, Birla) and editor can't be that bad, can those?
But still, I put it in the " didn't like it" category, cause I was pissed.
No, I was not pissed with the author's opinions, which I might not agree to, one time or other.
No, I was not annoyed with lack of convincing evidence backed arguments in these essays.
No, I was not bothered when the author selected his vintage essays with "I told you so" remarks.
No, I was not upset that it didn't add much to enrich my understanding of my country, our world.
What irked me the most was there was absolutely nothing (apart from probably two pages in the introduction) which linked the content of the book to the title: "How the Contest Between America, China, India and Islam will Shape Our Century". When you pick a title like "The New Clash of Civilizations" as if you are providing a sequel to Huntington's hugely controversial but famous work, you just can't go on and on the issues in Governance in India in past few years. There is not a single essay where it touches on, even remotely, how US, China or Islaam is remaking the world order.
This book could have been easily titled as "What is wrong with Congress Government in last 10 years?" The book has everything from the authors chance encounters with Dhirubhai Ambani in the lifts to India's pseudo-secularism, from Sachin Tendulkar's batting to Carl Sagan's Cosmos, except how civilizations are clashing in the modern time.
I felt like as if someone has sold me Royal Challenger's whiskey putting it in a Glenfiddich bottle. *Sigh*
July 26, 2022
Average read! Too many diverse topics & it was getting difficult to hold interest till the end!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews