Huntington first published the article, then the book.

Marc, I'm afraid I don't see anything genetic in Huntington. My read is that he sees culture writ large as civilization. And it is between these big cultures that he sees conflict. Historically, his thesis holds up best along the Eurpean/Islamic fault line. It falls apart entirely when he argues that the Mediterranean sub-set of Western Culture is a different civilization that he calls Latin American. Then there is the argument that Victor Davis Hanson makes in Carnage and Culture that the really nasty wars are between various enemies from within Western culture - WWI and WWII. We can reject parts of hunington's thesis on grounds other than the genetic argument but it still retains a heuristic utility. (Haven't been able to use "heuristic" in a long time.)

Cheers

JohnT