Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) was an influential American political scientist, born in New York City to publisher Richard Thomas Huntington and short-story writer Dorothy Sanborn (née Phillips), with grandfather John Sanborn Phillips also a publisher. A brilliant student, he graduated high school in his mid-teens. He served in the U.S. Army from April 1946 to May 1947 at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Huntington earned a BA from Yale University (1946), an MA from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in political science from Harvard University (1951), with a thesis on 'Clientelism: A Study in Administrative Politics.' His academic career at Harvard spanned decades: starting as an instructor in the Department of Government (1950), denied tenure in 1959, he joined Columbia University as Associate Professor of Government and Associate Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies (1959-1962), then returned to Harvard with tenure (1963), serving as Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor until his death, Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Chairman of the Government Department (1967-1969). He co-founded and co-edited Foreign Policy magazine until 1977 and taught undergraduates until retiring in 2007. As faculty advisor to Kris Kobach (1984-1988) and director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs, he influenced key figures in political science. In government roles, he served as White House Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council (1977-1978) under President Jimmy Carter, advised the Brazilian Medici government (1972) and the South African regime (1980s), and co-authored the Trilateral Commission report The Crisis of Democracy (1976). His notable works include The Soldier and the State (1957), introducing the theory of objective civilian control of the military; Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), critiquing modernization theory; The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991); The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), which argued that 'In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous'; and Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (2004), warning of threats from immigration and advocating assimilation into Protestant religions and English. His theories, particularly Clash of Civilizations (1993/1996), faced criticism for oversimplifying conflicts and legitimizing Western aggression, gaining prominence post-9/11; Who Are We? was seen as polemic rather than scholarship. He was rejected from the National Academy of Sciences in 1986 amid accusations of pseudo-science and criticized for advising authoritarian regimes. Personally, he married Nancy Arkelyan in 1957, had two sons (Nicholas and Timothy), and was a member of the Democratic Party. He died in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, after years of declining health.