BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A giant died early last week. His name was Samuel Huntington, a Harvard professor whose gigantism was intellectual. His ideas left huge footprints on our intellectual landscape, the way giant storms impact the Earth. Minds were shaken, sometimes stirred, and never left untouched.
His two most famous books burst on the scene decades apart: "The Soldier and the State" in 1957, and "Clash of Civilizations" in 1996.
The former offered a theory of how a strong military should function in a democratic system; it needs to form a professional caste and operate all but autonomously, yet remain always under civilian control. The latter book offered a theory about the basic nature of future conflicts in international relations.