Are we experiencing a 'clash of civilizations'? Can the Islamic and Western worlds be reconciled? Has globalization eroded differences between civilizations? Globalization and Civilizations challenges established assumptions about the nature of civilizations and the supposed inevitability of the conflict between the Islamic and Western worlds. Uniquely, this edited book critically interrogates the concept of 'civilization' by asking whether it is still valid in the globalized world economy of the twenty-first century. The first half of the book provides an historical and theoretical context to understand the idea of 'civilization' in political science and demonstrates how the various social, economic, political and cultural processes of globalization have radically altered perceptions of civilization. The second half of the book looks particularly at non-Western examples of the interaction between globalization and civilization and includes case studies on the Arab world, Islam, China, India and Europe