In urban Europe, there is nothing predestined about the clash of civilisations.

ECONOMIST: Muslims and city politics

Against the background of pundits worrying about a clash of civilisations, the descendant of the Prophet Muhammad has spent much of the past week schmoozing evangelical Christians.

ECONOMIST: An unusual alliance in the making

British accounts provide rich illustrations of the clash between two civilisations whose early interactions were dogged by their respective convictions of their own superiority and the barbarity of the other.

ECONOMIST: Why China has a long memory

Mr Bergen does not see the al-Qaeda movement as presaging an open-ended Huntingtonian clash of civilisations.

ECONOMIST: Osama bin Laden