Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Regnery Publishing (2006), Edition: 1st Edition, 214 pages
Description
In his first major book, concervative columnist Steyn takes on the anti-Americanism that fuels both Old Europe and radical Islam. America, Steyn argues, will have to stand alone. The future, Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. The Islamists are both, while the West--wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion--is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. Europe is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to America alone--with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
Two things set Mark Steyn apart from dystopian naysayers like Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. First, Steyn is an irrepressible bon vivant -- an odd trait in a journalist touting "the end of the world as we know it." Linguistically, no turn of phrase is too banal, risque, or obscure to be included in
Second, Steyn has a drawer-full of hard data at his disposal -- not cherry-picked computer models whose calculations are amazingly dependent on the speculative formulas fed into them. . . .
Steyn's term, "Eurabia," suggests the future he foresees for a continent flirting with a "demographic death spiral" and brooding in the lounge of that "old ennui." Rotterdam, where the Muslim population is 40%, may presage the shape of things by 2050 -- or sooner if "white-flight" out of "Eutopia" accelerates. In such an environment, "Pre-modern Islam beats post-modern Christianity." Put more dramatically, it's unlikely that "Pornistan" will peacefully co-exist with "the Islamic Republic of Holland." And in the struggle between those two, the strong horse doesn't belong to those who take pride in the fact that they aren't prepared to die for anything.
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Steyn's repertoire of fin de siecle ripostes. If Western civilization is going down the tubes, Steyn will at least get in a few bon vins, bonbons, and bon mots before the Eiffel Tower becomes the world's most prominent minaret.Second, Steyn has a drawer-full of hard data at his disposal -- not cherry-picked computer models whose calculations are amazingly dependent on the speculative formulas fed into them. . . .
Steyn's term, "Eurabia," suggests the future he foresees for a continent flirting with a "demographic death spiral" and brooding in the lounge of that "old ennui." Rotterdam, where the Muslim population is 40%, may presage the shape of things by 2050 -- or sooner if "white-flight" out of "Eutopia" accelerates. In such an environment, "Pre-modern Islam beats post-modern Christianity." Put more dramatically, it's unlikely that "Pornistan" will peacefully co-exist with "the Islamic Republic of Holland." And in the struggle between those two, the strong horse doesn't belong to those who take pride in the fact that they aren't prepared to die for anything.
Show Less
The wider English-reading public discovered the genius of Mark Steyn after September 11, and for two reasons other than the fact that his amazing prolificacy did not come at the expense of quality.
First, he is funny in an understated way; indeed, he may be the most interesting satirist now
Second, in this time of crisis in the Western world, Steyn is singularly unwavering and unaffected both by criticism and the blandishments of triangulation. Read Steyn each week of this long war, and there is no chance whatsoever that one will be surprised by a syrupy retraction, disguised as a “change of heart” or a “crisis of confidence”—those well-known embarrassing moments when a pundit suddenly learns he’s off the Washington A-list gravy train, and desperately wishes to write anything to get back on it. . . .
Instead, day in and day out, on the op-ed pages of the British, Australian, Canadian, and American daily papers, Steyn has brought home the simple fact of this war: whatever mistakes we have made are not fatal if we keep our heads. As he puts it near the end of the book, the problem is not merely that we are only employing a fraction of our physical power: “This book isn’t an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will.” . . .
Steyn is not, however, all sarcasm and fury. In a concluding chapter, he outlines a multifaceted ten-point strategy of dealing with radical Islam, from embracing women’s rights in the Middle East to marginalizing the pernicious UN, EU, and other gutless transcontinental organizations that in their cowardice trash the United States because it politely defers to their impotence in a way that the Islamic fascists most certainly do not.
Steyn ends this welcome book with a clarion call to ignore cheap criticism and press on with the fight against barbarity, for our civilization itself is at stake, and no one but America can save it: “We have been shirking too long, and that’s unworthy of a great civilization. To see off the new Dark Ages will be tough and demanding. The alternative will be worse.”
First, he is funny in an understated way; indeed, he may be the most interesting satirist now
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writing in English. . . .Second, in this time of crisis in the Western world, Steyn is singularly unwavering and unaffected both by criticism and the blandishments of triangulation. Read Steyn each week of this long war, and there is no chance whatsoever that one will be surprised by a syrupy retraction, disguised as a “change of heart” or a “crisis of confidence”—those well-known embarrassing moments when a pundit suddenly learns he’s off the Washington A-list gravy train, and desperately wishes to write anything to get back on it. . . .
Instead, day in and day out, on the op-ed pages of the British, Australian, Canadian, and American daily papers, Steyn has brought home the simple fact of this war: whatever mistakes we have made are not fatal if we keep our heads. As he puts it near the end of the book, the problem is not merely that we are only employing a fraction of our physical power: “This book isn’t an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will.” . . .
Steyn is not, however, all sarcasm and fury. In a concluding chapter, he outlines a multifaceted ten-point strategy of dealing with radical Islam, from embracing women’s rights in the Middle East to marginalizing the pernicious UN, EU, and other gutless transcontinental organizations that in their cowardice trash the United States because it politely defers to their impotence in a way that the Islamic fascists most certainly do not.
Steyn ends this welcome book with a clarion call to ignore cheap criticism and press on with the fight against barbarity, for our civilization itself is at stake, and no one but America can save it: “We have been shirking too long, and that’s unworthy of a great civilization. To see off the new Dark Ages will be tough and demanding. The alternative will be worse.”
Show Less
I’ve never read such an amusing book about such a grim subject. Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is in deadly earnest — our civilization is facing a crisis of confidence and demographic vigor just at the moment when a jihadi world movement stands poised to upend
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us. And yet Steyn’s inimitable wit enlivens every page. As NR readers already know, he is the Errol Flynn of commentators, finishing off opponents with a single flick of his rapier. Whether that rapier will finally be silenced by a scimitar is the story of this book. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member badgenome
Showing yet again why he is one of the most widely published columnists in the Anglosphere, Steyn delineates the decline - both demographically, certainly, but of no less importance, in terms of cultural confidence - of the West, and masterfully (and amusingly) lays bare the internal contradictions
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of multiculturalism. America Alone is timely, perceptive, hilarious, and very, very accessible. Show Less
LibraryThing member Malarchy
America Alone is a polemic on the problems of aging and diminishing European societies and the expansion of the Islamic world into those societies. It is written by a Belgian-Canadian living in the US who espouses Christian Republican beliefs and for most people this will either be a book you hate
Mark Steyn deals in issies that most find unpalatable and much of the European world has chosen to ignore. The European approach is disasterous and with the exception of a few in the Netherlands, we just aren't ready to deal with our own decline. Steyn spells it out brutally and while he might be picking and choosing statistics to bolster his case, it is the general thrust of the problem that should worry the western world.
The issue that Steyn deals with primarily is demographics - we all know that Europe is in decline but we do nothing about it. We know that our birth rates are too low and that the population count is being artificially inflated by immigration. Immigration is not inherently a bad thing (and Steyn stops short of arguing that it is) but an influx of people who refuse to identify with the host culture is. In the UK, Muslims have overtaken Hindus in population size in the last decade - I'm not sure anyone can recall a single problem within the British Hindu population as it sought to make itself part of the society within which it lived.
This is part of the problem that Steyn identifies - a pan-Islamic model is massively more appealing to Muslims than is any national identity. Steyn is absolutely right to say that the exportation of Wahabbism from Saudi Arabia is a direct threat in the same way that Soviet Communism was but it is just a much more effective threat. Islam is not monolithic but you wouldn't know that from the examples such as that Steyn cites in which a European of Bangladeshi descent demands the right to cover herself from view in a burkha - the burkha is a Bedouin garment designed to combat sandstorms in the desert - not very useful in Europe or Bangladesh so not of those cultures. What the example highlights is that it is the assertive Arabian form of the religion that is being embraced.
Steyn fronts up on the war that is really being fought between the West and Islam - culture. It is a war being fought on terms that the West will struggle to win. Demographics favour the East. Henlein (Starship Troopers) puts it better than Steyn can - cultures that out-breed others will inevitable dominate them. Steyn illustrates this perfectly with the case of the United Kingdom which dominated more of the world than anyone in history simply by generating a surplus of healthy people combined with technological superiority. Without the surplus, there would have been no British Empire, no exportation of Corinthian values, no end to the slave trade (a worldwide phenomenon), no system of international laws or liberal institutions.
We in the West choose to ignore history - we ignore the collapse of the great and enlightened Athenian empire because it's people became too decadent. Steyn makes the point well that it is younger, hungrier societies that win. Europe has pretty much given up. The societies of the Middle East, filled with a surplus of angry young men are more than we are prepared to cope with so we appease them instead.
Unfortunately in reading this book, it becomes difficult to associate with it's core argument because the rest is appalling. Steyn does not even feel the need for internal consistency and his arguments disintegrate which makes this a missed opportunity. Steyn discusses the disgraceful transfers of wealth from the West to the House of Saud in return for oil and what that money does in waging cool war against us. Yet he abjectly refuses to acknowledge the root cause in our dependency on fossil fuels. Without Americans driving their gas guzzlers, we wouldn't be funding our own demise.
Steyn doesn't understand climate change and bashes Al Gore in mostly humourless fashion. Steyn promotes gun ownership by citing the safety it provides while living in a society with unbelievable homicide rates compared to gentrified Europe. Steyn advocates citizen militia as a more effective form of self-defence and claims that it is the welfare state that has driven Europe into the tailspin. This is so annoying as it could be argued that the welfare state is a symptom of a decadent society but Steyn argues it as the cause - why do those who take stands against our decadent groupthink have to always make such basic errors of logic?
This is an irritating book - it deals brilliantly with the core topic and the culture war Europe cannot win on present course - but it associates that argument with specious nonsense that panders to the Redneck convert and makes it difficult for those who can think for themselves to promote the core thesis.
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or love. What is great about this book is that it lays down the tough issues that we face. What is terrible about this book is that it associates some clear thinking on demographics and religion with utter nonsense about climate change, welfarism, and citizen militia.Mark Steyn deals in issies that most find unpalatable and much of the European world has chosen to ignore. The European approach is disasterous and with the exception of a few in the Netherlands, we just aren't ready to deal with our own decline. Steyn spells it out brutally and while he might be picking and choosing statistics to bolster his case, it is the general thrust of the problem that should worry the western world.
The issue that Steyn deals with primarily is demographics - we all know that Europe is in decline but we do nothing about it. We know that our birth rates are too low and that the population count is being artificially inflated by immigration. Immigration is not inherently a bad thing (and Steyn stops short of arguing that it is) but an influx of people who refuse to identify with the host culture is. In the UK, Muslims have overtaken Hindus in population size in the last decade - I'm not sure anyone can recall a single problem within the British Hindu population as it sought to make itself part of the society within which it lived.
This is part of the problem that Steyn identifies - a pan-Islamic model is massively more appealing to Muslims than is any national identity. Steyn is absolutely right to say that the exportation of Wahabbism from Saudi Arabia is a direct threat in the same way that Soviet Communism was but it is just a much more effective threat. Islam is not monolithic but you wouldn't know that from the examples such as that Steyn cites in which a European of Bangladeshi descent demands the right to cover herself from view in a burkha - the burkha is a Bedouin garment designed to combat sandstorms in the desert - not very useful in Europe or Bangladesh so not of those cultures. What the example highlights is that it is the assertive Arabian form of the religion that is being embraced.
Steyn fronts up on the war that is really being fought between the West and Islam - culture. It is a war being fought on terms that the West will struggle to win. Demographics favour the East. Henlein (Starship Troopers) puts it better than Steyn can - cultures that out-breed others will inevitable dominate them. Steyn illustrates this perfectly with the case of the United Kingdom which dominated more of the world than anyone in history simply by generating a surplus of healthy people combined with technological superiority. Without the surplus, there would have been no British Empire, no exportation of Corinthian values, no end to the slave trade (a worldwide phenomenon), no system of international laws or liberal institutions.
We in the West choose to ignore history - we ignore the collapse of the great and enlightened Athenian empire because it's people became too decadent. Steyn makes the point well that it is younger, hungrier societies that win. Europe has pretty much given up. The societies of the Middle East, filled with a surplus of angry young men are more than we are prepared to cope with so we appease them instead.
Unfortunately in reading this book, it becomes difficult to associate with it's core argument because the rest is appalling. Steyn does not even feel the need for internal consistency and his arguments disintegrate which makes this a missed opportunity. Steyn discusses the disgraceful transfers of wealth from the West to the House of Saud in return for oil and what that money does in waging cool war against us. Yet he abjectly refuses to acknowledge the root cause in our dependency on fossil fuels. Without Americans driving their gas guzzlers, we wouldn't be funding our own demise.
Steyn doesn't understand climate change and bashes Al Gore in mostly humourless fashion. Steyn promotes gun ownership by citing the safety it provides while living in a society with unbelievable homicide rates compared to gentrified Europe. Steyn advocates citizen militia as a more effective form of self-defence and claims that it is the welfare state that has driven Europe into the tailspin. This is so annoying as it could be argued that the welfare state is a symptom of a decadent society but Steyn argues it as the cause - why do those who take stands against our decadent groupthink have to always make such basic errors of logic?
This is an irritating book - it deals brilliantly with the core topic and the culture war Europe cannot win on present course - but it associates that argument with specious nonsense that panders to the Redneck convert and makes it difficult for those who can think for themselves to promote the core thesis.
Show Less
LibraryThing member GaryWolf
One of the more fascinating attempts at explaining the decline of the West is Mark Steyn's "America Alone." Though the main thrust of the book is the threat of Islam, Steyn examines numerous sources of decay in Western society, the upshot being that we are vulnerable to the threat only because of
Steyn offers the reader reams of evidence to back up his assertion that a "significant strain of Islam" (which today happens to be the overwhelmingly dominant one) is wreaking havoc across the planet. Everything from riots in the Parisian banlieue to the massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan to the Palestinian death cult is exposed in all its horror. It is virtually everywhere, and it is constant:
"We switch on the news every evening and, though there are many trouble spots around the world, as a general rule it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in 'Palestine,' Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali, Muslims vs. Danish cartoonists in Scandinavia."
Instead of confronting the threat, or even acknowledging it for what it is, Western elites drag their populations into an anesthetized state of denial. Discussion of the issue (if it exists at all) is filtered through the layers of the multiculturalist narrative, which leaves it sanitized and devoid of real content. Says Steyn:
"Bomb us, and we agonize over the 'root causes.' Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that 'Islam is a religion of peace.' Issue blood-curdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can't wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush and Blair. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the 'vast majority' of Muslims 'jihad' is a harmless concept meaning 'healthy-lifestyle lo-fat granola bar'."
As Steyn makes clear, the problem would never have gotten so out of hand were it not for the meltdown of intellect that has occurred among the "educated" portion of the Western world. The jihadis take full advantage of this breach, and they are aided and abetted at every turn by their "progressive" enablers.
The West has lost its will to fight. We consistently defeat ourselves. The Islamists
"know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western Civilization collapses on itself and Islam inherits by default. An army is only one weapon a civilization wields, and the weapon of last resort, too. But when you add up those elements of national power--military, judicial, diplomatic, economic, informational--it's hard not to conclude that (as was said of the British after the fall of Singapore) at least four of those five guns are pointing in the wrong direction. The point of the media is to speak truth to (domestic) power, the point of transnationalism is to constrain American power, the point of law is to upgrade the defendant--and the upshot of economic power in a time of plenty is that every time you gas up you're funding an enemy who's flusher than he's been since the fall of Constantinople. Meanwhile, we fight the symptoms--the terror plots--but not the cause: the ideology. The self-imposed constraints of this war--legalistic, multilateral, politically correct--are clearer every day."
Steyn devotes quite a bit of ink to the issue of demography. The Muslim world, including the recent transplants into Europe, are benefiting from a high birthrate (the "upper reaches of the fertility hit parade") whereas the native populations--especially in Spain, Italy, and Greece--are falling far below replacement rate. The U.S. is chugging along at slightly above replacement level.
This phenomenon is of vast historical significance:
"In the fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out a third of the Continent's population; in the twenty-first, a larger proportion will disappear--in effect, by choice. We are living through a rare moment: the self-extinction of the civilization which, for good or ill, shaped the age we live in."
Steyn points out that in Europe, the Muslims are young; they are also energetic, confident, aggressive, and ready for sacrifice. The native populations are aging, and they are sluggish, guilt-ridden, fat, and dependent upon the welfare state. It does not take a sophisticated analyst to project scenarios one or two decades into the future. The picture is not pretty.
America Alone is a good read. Steyn's wit lies in wait at every turn of the page, and his observations on a wide range of peripheral topics are thought-provoking, to say the least. Take, for example, this perceptive comment on anti-Americanism:
"All dominant powers are hated--Britain was, and Rome--but they're usually hated for the right reasons. America is hated for every reason. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein, whatever you're against, America is the prime example of it."
Which is followed by this marvelous segue:
"That's one reason why [America's] disparagers have embraced environmentalism. If Washington were a conventional great power, the intellectual class would be arguing that the United States is a threat to France or India or Gabon or some such. But because it's so obviously not that kind of power, the world has had to concoct a thesis that the hyperpower is a threat not merely to this or that rinky-dink nation state but to the entire planet, if not the entire galaxy. 'We are,' warns Al Gore portentiously, 'altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe.' ... You wouldn't happen to have the statistical evidence for that, would you?"
If things continue on their course, predicts Steyn, we may find that
"the world will be well on its way to a new Dark Ages. Now, as then, Europe has its do-nothing kings--les rois fainéants--thought these days we call them European commissioners and chancellors and prime ministers. Now, as then, we have a Great Plague--the virus of Islamism--and the great migrations--the continent-wide version of 'white flight' already under way in Holland, as the beleaguered Dutch leave their native land for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Now, as then, we must all bow before the 'edict of toleration'--as laws and customs are rearranged to abase themselves before the gods of boundless multicultural tolerance."
A classic case of this abasement is detailed in the recently added introduction, "Soon to be Banned in Canada." When excerpts from the book were published by the news magazine Maclean's, the Canadian Islamic Congress filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Muslim group objected to the "flagrant Islamophobia" contained in the book.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has established itself as an extra-judicial star chamber for the enforcement of politically-correct orthodoxy. These little Soviet-style kangaroo courts, staffed by bureaucrats and specializing in "hate speech," have cast serious doubt over the future of Canadian democracy.
Discussing the complaint over his "flagrant Islamophobia," and the ensuing witch hunt, Steyn remarks:
"The head of the Canadian Islamic Congress is a man called Mohamed Elmasry. In a TV interview in 2004, Dr. Elmasry said it was legitimate to kill any Israeli civilian, male or female, over the age of eighteen. He is, thus, an objective supporter of terrorism. Yet he's accusing me of 'hate speech,' and is apparently the new poster boy for liberal progressive 'human rights' in Canada.
"And, in a nutshell, that paradox is what this book is about: What happens when a Western world so in thrall to platitudes about boundless 'tolerance' allows the forces of intolerance to carve it out from the inside? In seeking to stifle the arguments of America Alone, the Canadian Islamic Congress is making my point more eloquently than I ever could--that a significant strain of Islam is incompatible with the rough and tumble of a free society."
Food for thought.
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our weakness, confusion, and self-defeating behavior.Steyn offers the reader reams of evidence to back up his assertion that a "significant strain of Islam" (which today happens to be the overwhelmingly dominant one) is wreaking havoc across the planet. Everything from riots in the Parisian banlieue to the massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan to the Palestinian death cult is exposed in all its horror. It is virtually everywhere, and it is constant:
"We switch on the news every evening and, though there are many trouble spots around the world, as a general rule it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in 'Palestine,' Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali, Muslims vs. Danish cartoonists in Scandinavia."
Instead of confronting the threat, or even acknowledging it for what it is, Western elites drag their populations into an anesthetized state of denial. Discussion of the issue (if it exists at all) is filtered through the layers of the multiculturalist narrative, which leaves it sanitized and devoid of real content. Says Steyn:
"Bomb us, and we agonize over the 'root causes.' Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that 'Islam is a religion of peace.' Issue blood-curdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can't wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush and Blair. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the 'vast majority' of Muslims 'jihad' is a harmless concept meaning 'healthy-lifestyle lo-fat granola bar'."
As Steyn makes clear, the problem would never have gotten so out of hand were it not for the meltdown of intellect that has occurred among the "educated" portion of the Western world. The jihadis take full advantage of this breach, and they are aided and abetted at every turn by their "progressive" enablers.
The West has lost its will to fight. We consistently defeat ourselves. The Islamists
"know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western Civilization collapses on itself and Islam inherits by default. An army is only one weapon a civilization wields, and the weapon of last resort, too. But when you add up those elements of national power--military, judicial, diplomatic, economic, informational--it's hard not to conclude that (as was said of the British after the fall of Singapore) at least four of those five guns are pointing in the wrong direction. The point of the media is to speak truth to (domestic) power, the point of transnationalism is to constrain American power, the point of law is to upgrade the defendant--and the upshot of economic power in a time of plenty is that every time you gas up you're funding an enemy who's flusher than he's been since the fall of Constantinople. Meanwhile, we fight the symptoms--the terror plots--but not the cause: the ideology. The self-imposed constraints of this war--legalistic, multilateral, politically correct--are clearer every day."
Steyn devotes quite a bit of ink to the issue of demography. The Muslim world, including the recent transplants into Europe, are benefiting from a high birthrate (the "upper reaches of the fertility hit parade") whereas the native populations--especially in Spain, Italy, and Greece--are falling far below replacement rate. The U.S. is chugging along at slightly above replacement level.
This phenomenon is of vast historical significance:
"In the fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out a third of the Continent's population; in the twenty-first, a larger proportion will disappear--in effect, by choice. We are living through a rare moment: the self-extinction of the civilization which, for good or ill, shaped the age we live in."
Steyn points out that in Europe, the Muslims are young; they are also energetic, confident, aggressive, and ready for sacrifice. The native populations are aging, and they are sluggish, guilt-ridden, fat, and dependent upon the welfare state. It does not take a sophisticated analyst to project scenarios one or two decades into the future. The picture is not pretty.
America Alone is a good read. Steyn's wit lies in wait at every turn of the page, and his observations on a wide range of peripheral topics are thought-provoking, to say the least. Take, for example, this perceptive comment on anti-Americanism:
"All dominant powers are hated--Britain was, and Rome--but they're usually hated for the right reasons. America is hated for every reason. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein, whatever you're against, America is the prime example of it."
Which is followed by this marvelous segue:
"That's one reason why [America's] disparagers have embraced environmentalism. If Washington were a conventional great power, the intellectual class would be arguing that the United States is a threat to France or India or Gabon or some such. But because it's so obviously not that kind of power, the world has had to concoct a thesis that the hyperpower is a threat not merely to this or that rinky-dink nation state but to the entire planet, if not the entire galaxy. 'We are,' warns Al Gore portentiously, 'altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe.' ... You wouldn't happen to have the statistical evidence for that, would you?"
If things continue on their course, predicts Steyn, we may find that
"the world will be well on its way to a new Dark Ages. Now, as then, Europe has its do-nothing kings--les rois fainéants--thought these days we call them European commissioners and chancellors and prime ministers. Now, as then, we have a Great Plague--the virus of Islamism--and the great migrations--the continent-wide version of 'white flight' already under way in Holland, as the beleaguered Dutch leave their native land for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Now, as then, we must all bow before the 'edict of toleration'--as laws and customs are rearranged to abase themselves before the gods of boundless multicultural tolerance."
A classic case of this abasement is detailed in the recently added introduction, "Soon to be Banned in Canada." When excerpts from the book were published by the news magazine Maclean's, the Canadian Islamic Congress filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Muslim group objected to the "flagrant Islamophobia" contained in the book.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has established itself as an extra-judicial star chamber for the enforcement of politically-correct orthodoxy. These little Soviet-style kangaroo courts, staffed by bureaucrats and specializing in "hate speech," have cast serious doubt over the future of Canadian democracy.
Discussing the complaint over his "flagrant Islamophobia," and the ensuing witch hunt, Steyn remarks:
"The head of the Canadian Islamic Congress is a man called Mohamed Elmasry. In a TV interview in 2004, Dr. Elmasry said it was legitimate to kill any Israeli civilian, male or female, over the age of eighteen. He is, thus, an objective supporter of terrorism. Yet he's accusing me of 'hate speech,' and is apparently the new poster boy for liberal progressive 'human rights' in Canada.
"And, in a nutshell, that paradox is what this book is about: What happens when a Western world so in thrall to platitudes about boundless 'tolerance' allows the forces of intolerance to carve it out from the inside? In seeking to stifle the arguments of America Alone, the Canadian Islamic Congress is making my point more eloquently than I ever could--that a significant strain of Islam is incompatible with the rough and tumble of a free society."
Food for thought.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sergerca
Required reading. Only Steyn can make a topic so depressing so hilarious. Of the books I've read about the increasing war between Islam and the West this one strikes the nail on the head most directly discussing the West's current lack of both offspring and will.
LibraryThing member PastorBob
I'm cheering Mark Steyn on. It's not that I agree with every conclusion he makes, nor with every idea. But his fundamental thesis, that the western world in the hands of the liberal progressives and the political left cannot survive well in the real global world of ideologies and power, and so will
We have abandoned truth, common sense, and principles. Without them, the western world will die. Without them, maybe it should. Alarmist? Well what else wakes people up but an alarm?
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collapse before the advance of any strong ideology that forces it's way, is a good one. We have abandoned truth, common sense, and principles. Without them, the western world will die. Without them, maybe it should. Alarmist? Well what else wakes people up but an alarm?
Show Less
LibraryThing member rmolter
Wow, this should be required reading by anyone concerned about the future of the world as we know it. I mentioned the book's subject to a co-worker who is Estonian and she related that when she was a kid the pop was 1.5 million, it's now 1.3 million...she's 26.
LibraryThing member mrtall
Bracing, to the point of being frightening. Steyn lays out, using a deft mix of humor and horror, the demographic realities facing Europe in the coming decades, and the potentially disastrous effects this will have on the rest of the world.
LibraryThing member NovelBookworm
Pretty darn good, but it'll bother the bejeebers out of you. I really hadn't given demographics much of a thought with regards to immigration, multiculturism, etc. until reading this book. Its worth your time to read it, I wish a few of our polititcians would do the same.
LibraryThing member disneypope
Wow. If one filters out Steyn's sarcasm and politics, this book is still unnerving. Using demographic trends with birthrates across the Western World, Steyn shows the current trends and possible outcome of a world with unchecked Islam. WEstern culture has sold out to political correctness for the
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sake of being polite and we are turning our governments into welfare states. Thought-provoking. Show Less
LibraryThing member jdmays
The author is a columnist and this book reads like a collection of his columns. He's very funny and engaging but the book doesn't hang together well. Enjoyable to read in small doses, as if one were reading a newspaper column. He makes the point about the coming Islamist menace in the first few
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chapters, then proceeds to bludgeon us to death with it for the remainder. Show Less
LibraryThing member willhelm
Thought-provoking, attention-getting, and slightly alarmist. Steyn is a master writer with a skillful, post-modern blend of structure, humor, alarmist rant, sobering reality, and calm resolve. Concise and to the point, Steyn presents the facts of our demographically changing world and stands out as
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a watchman on the times. Show Less
LibraryThing member kgrammer
Mark Steyn's writing is riveting.
LibraryThing member jimocracy
I think I would have liked this book better if the author hadn't talked so much about the dangers of Islam.
LibraryThing member smallself
What Mark Steyn really (thinks he) needs is a fight, which is why I’ll keep this as calm as possible.
He just wants a fight. It doesn’t matter if it’s Islam or not. It could just as easily be Mexico, a country that is probably more Christian than America is. In practice, Trump (and Steyn was
.... And just look at the cover art. (The edition I remember from my natalist-psychosis days was really just Mexico and Canada versus America, not tilted or whatever like this one.) Ever reflect that Canada and Mexico aren’t Muslim countries? It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s Not-Me. “Muslims, Mexicans, whatever. All those people are the same. They’re all Not-Me.” (Another good reason to revisit old delusions, as they tend to morph. “Where did it start? I have no idea....” “A Turk? I don’t care. He can come to the wedding if he blends in, which he does. Handsome chap. A black minister? You’re not serious. God can you imagine? Who wants more wine?” And then you don’t want to work at Wendy’s if half the burger-boys are black, and you can’t figure out why. “I guess I’ve just always disliked people who aren’t.... who are.... *different*, I don’t know. It’s a safety thing, though, very practical: I can prove all of it, no doubt....)
It’s just that fighting jihadists sounds more epic than fighting bilingual McDonald’s menus. But in practice, it doesn’t matter. As long as you take the bait and get angry, ready to fight either for or against him, he’s achieved his political objective. Didn’t the Dark Side Dude in one of those Star Wars movies say, ‘Strike me down; use your anger’?
Of course, when he’s really on a roll he tries to be funny, albeit in a passive aggressive way. I like being funny and passive aggressive myself, although perhaps not so much now as in younger days.
.... And, again, I regret that some people look at Mark Steyn as being as bad as pornography, because it’s not. It’s imaginatively counter-factual, but it’s not pornography.
.............................
I would be remiss if I didn’t clarify one point: you don’t have to let Mark Steyn scare you away from Christianity.
Some people do seem to flick from one to the other, A to non-A, Christ to (words have uses) Antichrist, very easily. But it isn’t always so. There are some who occasionally pray for bad things in good faith, as I have done, but it is not always so with them. It is different, with those who know Jesus, from those who know only the battle-map. Of course, not even Caesar is Anti-Christ 100% of the time, but you know what I mean: there’s knowing things, and reducing people to objects, and there’s knowing God, and becoming like Him.
It’s like with Levin and Vronsky or whoever the end of “Anna Karenina”. One of them goes off to fight for the great Slavonic race against the Turk, and the other goes off to actually know Jesus.
I was just at a prayer meeting: very nice, very kind, very diverse— a little conservative about certain things, but they have absolutely nothing, nothing, to do with race and revolution. We were reading the Psalms, each person taking a verse, and the one that fell to me—not that I went skimming for, but that fell to me, was:
“I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there’”. (Psalm 87:4).
In other words, ‘We’re going to have a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it.’
.............................
Play-by-play works like this:
Martin Amis got divorced, so you had to make a snide reference to it to set the atmosphere for defending Christendom? Really?
You’ll notice how often the humor is just being snide, disrespectful, and often, random.
You’ll notice how this would tend to go against what we talked about before, which is why I did this the way I did this.
I’ll spare you the play-by-play.
.........................................
I realize that being apolitical isn’t a get out of jail free card for everything, but.... how do you go from reviewing “Cats”, to this? Although I suppose that nobody cares if you review “Cats”. I guess war is sexier. And as much as he doesn’t want to get called out for advocating genocide straight, I think he gets some kind of gas out of the criticism almost as much as from the praise. War is definitely sexier.
Still, it’s a mystery. At one point, all he cared about was Andrew Lloyd Weber.
He just wants a fight. It doesn’t matter if it’s Islam or not. It could just as easily be Mexico, a country that is probably more Christian than America is. In practice, Trump (and Steyn was
Show More
one of Trump’s guys before Trump was) is opposed to both Muslims (travel ban) and Mexico (the wall), but he didn’t shut the government down over the travel ban, he shut it down over the wall. .... And just look at the cover art. (The edition I remember from my natalist-psychosis days was really just Mexico and Canada versus America, not tilted or whatever like this one.) Ever reflect that Canada and Mexico aren’t Muslim countries? It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s Not-Me. “Muslims, Mexicans, whatever. All those people are the same. They’re all Not-Me.” (Another good reason to revisit old delusions, as they tend to morph. “Where did it start? I have no idea....” “A Turk? I don’t care. He can come to the wedding if he blends in, which he does. Handsome chap. A black minister? You’re not serious. God can you imagine? Who wants more wine?” And then you don’t want to work at Wendy’s if half the burger-boys are black, and you can’t figure out why. “I guess I’ve just always disliked people who aren’t.... who are.... *different*, I don’t know. It’s a safety thing, though, very practical: I can prove all of it, no doubt....)
It’s just that fighting jihadists sounds more epic than fighting bilingual McDonald’s menus. But in practice, it doesn’t matter. As long as you take the bait and get angry, ready to fight either for or against him, he’s achieved his political objective. Didn’t the Dark Side Dude in one of those Star Wars movies say, ‘Strike me down; use your anger’?
Of course, when he’s really on a roll he tries to be funny, albeit in a passive aggressive way. I like being funny and passive aggressive myself, although perhaps not so much now as in younger days.
.... And, again, I regret that some people look at Mark Steyn as being as bad as pornography, because it’s not. It’s imaginatively counter-factual, but it’s not pornography.
.............................
I would be remiss if I didn’t clarify one point: you don’t have to let Mark Steyn scare you away from Christianity.
Some people do seem to flick from one to the other, A to non-A, Christ to (words have uses) Antichrist, very easily. But it isn’t always so. There are some who occasionally pray for bad things in good faith, as I have done, but it is not always so with them. It is different, with those who know Jesus, from those who know only the battle-map. Of course, not even Caesar is Anti-Christ 100% of the time, but you know what I mean: there’s knowing things, and reducing people to objects, and there’s knowing God, and becoming like Him.
It’s like with Levin and Vronsky or whoever the end of “Anna Karenina”. One of them goes off to fight for the great Slavonic race against the Turk, and the other goes off to actually know Jesus.
I was just at a prayer meeting: very nice, very kind, very diverse— a little conservative about certain things, but they have absolutely nothing, nothing, to do with race and revolution. We were reading the Psalms, each person taking a verse, and the one that fell to me—not that I went skimming for, but that fell to me, was:
“I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there’”. (Psalm 87:4).
In other words, ‘We’re going to have a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it.’
.............................
Play-by-play works like this:
Martin Amis got divorced, so you had to make a snide reference to it to set the atmosphere for defending Christendom? Really?
You’ll notice how often the humor is just being snide, disrespectful, and often, random.
You’ll notice how this would tend to go against what we talked about before, which is why I did this the way I did this.
I’ll spare you the play-by-play.
.........................................
I realize that being apolitical isn’t a get out of jail free card for everything, but.... how do you go from reviewing “Cats”, to this? Although I suppose that nobody cares if you review “Cats”. I guess war is sexier. And as much as he doesn’t want to get called out for advocating genocide straight, I think he gets some kind of gas out of the criticism almost as much as from the praise. War is definitely sexier.
Still, it’s a mystery. At one point, all he cared about was Andrew Lloyd Weber.
Show Less
Subjects
Original language
English
Physical description
224 p.; 6 inches
ISBN
0895260786 / 9780895260789
UPC
880810123096
Local notes
This book can be found under "Religion & Spirituality" section.