Interview with Fred Halliday “The main challenge for the twenty-first century is the nature of change in the Islamic world and its relationship with the West”

Between 2004 and 2005, Fred Halliday, Head of International Relations at the London School of Economics, was a visiting professor at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB). Taking advantage of his stay in the city, IDEES arranged for Professor Cesáreo Rodríguez-Aguilera de Prat to interview him. During the interview, Halliday describes identities as a series of symbols and senses, as an understanding of history and language, fluid and changeable from one generation to the next. It seems, therefore, that Huntington’s vision of Islam is thoroughly monolithic and simplistic, and his axiomatic assumption of the inevitability of conflict is mistaken.

This article forms part of issue 23-24 of the IDEES magazine, “Reviewing Huntington and the clash of civilisations”, published in print format between July and December 2004. The PDF article is available to download below.